Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews Part 12

"Il faut distinguer par rapport a tous les ordres des phenomenes, deux genres de sciences naturelles; les unes abstraites, generales, ont pour objet la decouverte des lois qui regissent les diverses cla.s.ses de phenomenes, en considerant tous les cas qu'on peut concevoir; les autres concretes, particulieres, descriptives, et qu'on designe quelquefois sous le nom des sciences naturelles proprement dites, consistent dans l'application de ces lois a l'histoire effective des differents etres existants."[23]

The "abstract" sciences are subsequently said to be mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology, and social physics--the t.i.tles of the two latter being subsequently changed to biology and sociology. M. Comte exemplifies the distinction between his abstract and his concrete sciences as follows:--

"On pourra d'abord l'apercevoir tres-nettement en comparant, d'une part, la physiologie generale, et d'une autre part la zoologie et la botanique proprement dites. Ce sont evidemment, en effet, deux travaux d'un caractere fort distinct, que d'etudier, en general, les lois de la vie, ou de determiner le mode d'existence de chaque corps vivant, en particulier. _Cette seconde etude, en outre, est necessairememt fondee sur la premiere._"--P. 57.

All the unreality and mere bookishness of M. Comte's knowledge of physical science comes out in the pa.s.sage I have italicised. "The special study of living beings is based upon a general study of the laws of life!" What little I know about the matter leads me to think, that, if M. Comte had possessed the slightest practical acquaintance with biological science, he would have turned his phraseology upside down, and have perceived that we can have no knowledge of the general laws of life, except that which is based upon the study of particular living beings.

The ill.u.s.tration is surely unluckily chosen; but the language in which these so-called abstract sciences are defined seems to me to be still more open to criticism. With what propriety can astronomy, or physics, or chemistry, or biology, be said to occupy themselves with the consideration of "all conceivable cases" which fall within their respective provinces? Does the astronomer occupy himself with any other system of the universe than that which is visible to him? Does he speculate upon the possible movements of bodies which may attract one another in the inverse proportion of the cube of their distances, say?

Does biology, whether "abstract" or "concrete," occupy itself with any other form of life than those which exist, or have existed? And, if the abstract sciences embrace all conceivable cases of the operation of the laws with which they are concerned, would not they, necessarily, embrace the subjects of the concrete sciences, which, inasmuch as they exist, must needs be conceivable? In fact, no such distinction as that which M.

Comte draws is tenable. The first stage of his cla.s.sification breaks by its own weight.

But granting M. Comte his six abstract sciences, he proceeds to arrange them according to what he calls their natural order or hierarchy, their places in this hierarchy being determined by the degree of generality and simplicity of the conceptions with which they deal. Mathematics occupies the first, astronomy the second, physics the third, chemistry the fourth, biology the fifth, and sociology the sixth and last place in the series. M. Comte's arguments in favour of this cla.s.sification are first--

"Sa conformite essentielle avec la co-ordination, en quelque sorte spontanee, qui se trouve en effet implicitement admise par les savants livres a l'etude des diverse branches de la philosophie naturelle."

But I absolutely deny the existence of this conformity. If there is one thing clear about the progress of modern science, it is the tendency to reduce all scientific problems, except those which are purely mathematical, to questions of molecular physics--that is to, say, to the attractions, repulsions, motions, and co-ordination of the ultimate particles of matter. Social phaenomena are the result of the interaction of the components of society, or men, with one another and the surrounding universe. But, in the language of physical science, which, by the nature of the case, is materialistic, the actions of men, so far as they are recognisable by science, are the results of molecular changes in the matter of which they are composed; and, in the long run, these must come into the hands of the physicist. _A fortiori_, the phaenomena of biology and of chemistry are, in their ultimate a.n.a.lysis, questions of molecular physics. Indeed, the fact is acknowledged by all chemists and biologists who look beyond their immediate occupations. And it is to be observed, that the phaenomena of biology are as directly and immediately connected with molecular physics as are those of chemistry.

Molar physics, chemistry, and biology are not three successive steps in the ladder of knowledge, as M. Comte would have us believe, but three branches springing from the common stem of molecular physics.

As to astronomy, I am at a loss to understand how any one who will give a moment's attention to the nature of the science can fail to see that it consists of two parts: first, of a description of the phaenomena, which is as much ent.i.tled as descriptive zoology, or botany, is, to the name of natural history; and, secondly, of an explanation of the phaenomena, furnished by the laws of a force--gravitation--the study of which is as much a part of physics, as is that of heat, or electricity.

It would be just as reasonable to make the study of the heat of the sun a science preliminary to the rest of thermotics, as to place the study of the attraction of the bodies, which compose the universe in general, before that of the particular terrestrial bodies, which alone we can experimentally know. Astronomy, in fact, owes its perfection to the circ.u.mstance that it is the only branch of natural history, the phaenomena of which are largely expressible by mathematical conceptions, and which can be, to a great extent, explained by the application of very simple physical laws.

With regard to mathematics, it is to be observed, in the first place, that M. Comte mixes up under that head the pure relations of s.p.a.ce and of quant.i.ty, which are properly included under the name, with rational mechanics and statics, which are mathematical developments of the most general conceptions of physics, namely, the notions of force and of motion. Relegating these to their proper place in physics, we have left pure mathematics, which can stand neither at the head, nor at the tail, of any hierarchy of the sciences, since, like logic, it is equally related to all; though the enormous practical difficulty of applying mathematics to the more complex phaenomena of nature removes them, for the present, out of its sphere.

On this subject of mathematics, again, M. Comte indulges in a.s.sertions which can only be accounted for by his total ignorance of physical science practically. As for example:--

"C'est donc par l'etude des mathematiques, _et seulement par elle_, que l'on peut se faire une idee juste et approfondie de ce que c'est qu'une _science_. C'est la _uniquement_ qu'on doit chercher a connaitre avec precision _la methode generale que l'esprit humain emploie constamment dans toutes ses recherches positives_, parce que nulle part ailleurs les questions ne sont resolues d'une maniere aussi complete et les deductions prolongees aussi loin avec une severite rigoureuse. C'est la egalement que notre entendement a donne les plus grandes preuves de sa force, parce que les idees qu'il y considere sont du plus haut degre d'abstraction possible dans l'ordre positif. _Toute education scientifique qui ne commence point par une telle etude peche donc necessairement par sa base._"[24]

That is to say, the only study which can confer "a just and comprehensive idea of what is meant by science," and, at the same time, furnish an exact conception of the general method of scientific investigation, is that which knows nothing of observation, nothing of experiment, nothing of induction, nothing of causation! And education, the whole secret of which consists in proceeding from the easy to the difficult, the concrete to the abstract, ought to be turned the other way, and pa.s.s from the abstract to the concrete.

M. Comte puts a second argument in favour of his hierarchy of the sciences thus:--

"Un second caractere tres-essentiel de notre cla.s.sification, c'est d'etre necessairement conforme a l'ordre effectif du developpement de la philosophie naturelle. C'est ce que verifie tout ce qu'on sait de l'histoire des sciences."[25]

But Mr. Spencer has so thoroughly and completely demonstrated the absence of any correspondence between the historical development of the sciences, and their position in the Comtean hierarchy, in his essay on the "Genesis of Science," that I shall not waste time in repeating his refutation.

A third proposition in support of the Comtean cla.s.sification of the sciences stands as follows:--

"En troisieme lieu cette cla.s.sification presente la propriete tres-remarquable de marquer exactement la perfection relative des differentes sciences, laquelle consiste essentiellement dans le degre de precision des connaissances et dans leur co-ordination plus ou moins intime."[26]

I am quite unable to understand the distinction which M. Comte endeavours to draw in this pa.s.sage in spite of his amplifications further on. Every science must consist of precise knowledge, and that knowledge must be co-ordinated into general proportions, or it is not science. When M. Comte, in exemplification of the statement I have cited, says that "les phenomenes organiques ne comportent qu'une etude a la fois moins exacte et moins systematique que les phenomenes des corps bruts," I am at a loss to comprehend what he means. If I affirm that "when a motor nerve is irritated, the muscle connected with it becomes simultaneously shorter and thicker, without changing its volume," it appears to me that the statement is as precise or exact (and not merely as true) as that of the physicist who should say, that "when a piece of iron is heated, it becomes simultaneously longer and thicker and increases in volume;" nor can I discover any difference, in point of precision, between the statement of the morphological law that "animals which suckle their young have two occipital condyles," and the enunciation of the physical law that "water subjected to electrolysis is replaced by an equal weight of the gases, oxygen and hydrogen." As for anatomical or physiological investigation being less "systematic"

than that of the physicist or chemist, the a.s.sertion is simply unaccountable. The methods of physical science are everywhere the same in principle, and the physiological investigator who was not "systematic" would, on the whole, break down rather sooner than the inquirer into simpler subjects.

Thus M. Comte's cla.s.sification of the sciences, under all its aspects, appears to me to be a complete failure. It is impossible, in an article which is already too long, to inquire how it may be replaced by a better; and it is the less necessary to do so, as a second edition of Mr. Spencer's remarkable essay on this subject has just been published.

After wading through pages of the long-winded confusion and second-hand information of the "Philosophic Positive," at the risk of a _crise cerebrale_--it is as good as a shower-bath to turn to the "Cla.s.sification of the Sciences," and refresh oneself with Mr. Spencer's profound thought, precise knowledge, and clear language.

II. The second proposition to which I have committed myself, in the paper to which I have been obliged to refer so often, is, that the "Positive Philosophy" contains "a great deal which is as thoroughly antagonistic to the very essence of science as is anything in ultramontane Catholicism."

What I refer to in these words, is, on the one hand, the dogmatism and narrowness which so often mark M. Comte's discussion of doctrines which he does not like, and reduce his expressions of opinion to mere pa.s.sionate puerilities; as, for example, when he is arguing against the a.s.sumption of an ether, or when he is talking (I cannot call it arguing) against psychology, or political economy. On the other hand, I allude to the spirit of meddling systematization and regulation which animates even the "Philosophic Positive," and breaks out, in the latter volumes of that work, into no uncertain foreshadowing of the anti-scientific monstrosities of Comte's later writings.

Those who try to draw a line of demarcation between the spirit of the "Philosophic Positive," and that of the "Politique" and its successors, (if I may express an opinion from fragmentary knowledge of these last,) must have overlooked, or forgotten, what Comte himself labours to show, and indeed succeeds in proving, in the "Appendice General" of the "Politique Positive." "Des mon debut," he writes, "je tentai de fonder le nouveau pouvoir spirituel que j'inst.i.tue aujourd'hui." "Ma politique, loin d'etre aucunement opposee a ma philosophie, en const.i.tue tellement la suite naturelle que celle-ci fut directement inst.i.tuee pour servir de base a celle-la, comme le prouve cet appendice."[27]

This is quite true. In the remarkable essay ent.i.tled "Considerations sur le Pouvoir spirituel," published in March 1826, Comte advocates the establishment of a "modern spiritual power," which, he antic.i.p.ates, may exercise an even greater influence over temporal affairs, than did the Catholic clergy, at the height of their vigour and independence, in the twelfth century. This spiritual power is, in fact, to govern opinion, and to have the supreme control over education, in each nation of the West; and the spiritual powers of the several European peoples are to be a.s.sociated together and placed under a common direction or "souverainete spirituelle."

A system of "Catholicism _minus_ Christianity" was therefore completely organized in Comte's mind, four years before the first volume of the "Philosophie Positive" was written; and, naturally, the papal spirit shows itself in that work, not only in the ways I have already mentioned, but, notably, in the attack on liberty of conscience which breaks out in the fourth volume:--

"Il n'y a point de liberte de conscience en astronomie, en physique, en chimie, en physiologie meme, en ce sens que chacun trouverait absurde de ne pas croire de confiance aux principes etablis dans les sciences par les hommes competents."

"Nothing in ultramontane Catholicism" can, in my judgment, be more completely sacerdotal, more entirely anti-scientific, than this dictum.

All the great steps in the advancement of science have been made by just those men who have not hesitated to doubt the "principles established in the sciences by competent persons;" and the great teaching of science--the great use of it as an instrument of mental discipline--is its constant inculcation of the maxim, that the sole ground on which any statement has a right to be believed is the impossibility of refuting it.

Thus, without travelling beyond the limits of the "Philosophie Positive," we find its author contemplating the establishment of a system of society, in which an organized spiritual power shall over-ride and direct the temporal power, as completely as the Innocents and Gregorys tried to govern Europe in the middle ages; and repudiating the exercise of liberty of conscience against the "_hommes competents_", of whom, by the a.s.sumption, the new priesthood would be composed. Was Mr.

Congreve as forgetful of this, as he seems to have been of some other parts of the "Philosophie Positive," when he wrote, that "in any limited, careful use of the term, no candid man could say that the Positive Philosophy contained a great deal as thoroughly antagonistic to [the very essence of[28]] science as Catholicism"?

M. Comte, it will have been observed, desires to retain the whole of Catholic organization; and the logical practical result of this part of his doctrine would be the establishment of something corresponding with that eminently Catholic, but admittedly anti-scientific, inst.i.tution--the Holy Office.

I hope I have said enough to show that I wrote the few lines I devoted to M. Comte and his philosophy, neither unguardedly, nor ignorantly, still less maliciously. I shall be sorry if what I have now added, in my own justification, should lead any to suppose that I think M. Comte's works worthless; or that I do not heartily respect, and sympathise with, those who have been impelled by him to think deeply upon social problems, and to strive n.o.bly for social regeneration. It is the virtue of that impulse, I believe, which will save the name and fame of Auguste Comte from oblivion. As for his philosophy, I part with it by quoting his own words, reported to me by a quondam Comtist, now an eminent member of the Inst.i.tute of France, M. Charles Robin:--

"La Philosophie est une tentative incessante de l'esprit humain pour arriver au repos: mais elle se trouve incessamment aussi derangee par les progres continus de la science. De la vient pour le philosophe l'obligation de refaire chaque soir la synthese de ses conceptions; et un jour viendra ou l'homme raisonnable ne fera plus d'autre priere du soir."

FOOTNOTES:

[13] I am glad to observe that Mr. Congreve, in the criticism with which he has favoured me in the number of the _Fortnightly Review_ for April 1869, does not venture to challenge the justice of the claim I make for Hume. He merely suggests that I have been wanting in candour in not mentioning Comte's high opinion of Hume. After mature reflection I am unable to discern my fault. If I had suggested that Comte had borrowed from Hume without acknowledgment; or if, instead of trying to express my own sense of Hume's merits with the modesty which becomes a writer who has no authority in matters of philosophy, I had affirmed that no one had properly appreciated him, Mr. Congreve's remarks would apply: but as I did neither of these things, they appear to me to be irrelevant, if not unjustifiable. And even had it occurred to me to quote M. Comte's expressions about Hume, I do not know that I should have cited them, inasmuch as, on his own showing, M. Comte occasionally speaks very decidedly touching writers of whose works he has not read a line. Thus, in Tome VI. of the "Philosophie Positive," p. 619, M. Comte writes: "Le plus grand des metaphysiciens modernes, l'ill.u.s.tre Kant, a n.o.blement merite une eternelle admiration en tentant, le premier, d'echapper directement a l'absolu philosophique par sa celebre conception de la double realite, a la fois objective et subjective, qui indique un si juste sentiment de la saine philosophie."

But in the "Preface Personnelle" in the same volume, p. 35, M. Comte tells us:--"Je n'ai jamais lu, en aucune langue, ni Vico, _ni Kant_, ni Herder, ni Hegel, &c.; je ne connais leurs divers ouvrages que d'apres quelques relations indirectes et certains extraits fort insuffisants."

Who knows but that the "&c." may include Hume? And in that case what is the value of M. Comte's praise of him?

[14] Now and always I quote the second edition, by Littre.

[15] "Philosophie Positive," ii. p. 440.

[16] "Le brillant mais superficiel Cuvier."--_Philosophie Positive_, vi.

p. 383.

[17] "Philosophie Positive," iii. p. 369.

[18] Ibid. p. 387.

[19] Hear the late Dr. Whewell, who calls Comte "a shallow pretender,"

so far as all the modern sciences, except astronomy, are concerned; and tells us that "his pretensions to discoveries are, as Sir John Herschel has shown, absurdly fallacious."--"Comte and Positivism," _Macmillan's Magazine_, March 1866.

[20] "Philosophie Positive," i. pp. 8, 9.

[21] "Philosophie Positive," iii. p. 188.

[22] The word "positive" is in every way objectionable. In one sense it suggests that mental quality which was undoubtedly largely developed in M. Comte, but can best be dispensed with in a philosopher; in another, it is unfortunate in its application to a system which starts with enormous negations; in its third, and specially philosophical sense, as implying a system of thought which a.s.sumes nothing beyond the content of observed facts, it implies that which never did exist, and never will.

[23] "Philosophie Positive," i. p. 56.