The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 110

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Translated from Le Correspondant

POSITIVISM.

A. COMTE, LITTRe, H. TAINE.

An exposition of the various philosophical systems constructed in our times against Christianity, either as means of combatting it or as subst.i.tutes for it, and showing in the false a.s.sumption with which they all start the reason of their failure, would be an interesting and instructive work. It would be a new _history of variations_, and of the impotence of the human mind when it a.s.sumes to be sufficient for itself, and the natural complement to the first, were there a Bossuet to write it. Now it is a chapter of this history not yet written, but which one day will be, that I propose to prepare in rendering an account here of the positivist philosophy, of which M.

Auguste Comte was the inventor, and M. Littre is the learned and fervent defender. To enable my readers to understand, as well as may be, this pretended philosophy, I will first state through what accidents and revolutions it has pa.s.sed, then set forth its chief formulas, and finally conclude by pa.s.sing on them such critical judgment as an impartial examination shall suggest.

The founder and chief of the positivist philosophy, Auguste Comte, died at Paris in 1858, in the 59th year of his age. He was born in 1798 at Montpellier, of Christian parents; but, placed early in the lyceum of that city, he soon lost there, under the influence of the reigning spirit of the school, the faith of his childhood. From the lyceum he went to the ecole Polytechnique, in which the worship of the Convention and revolutionary ideas was at that period held in high honor. We recall these circ.u.mstances, because the childhood and youth of a man serve to explain his mature age.

It does not appear that M. Comte, on leaving the Polytechnic School, received, as is ordinarily the case, any appointment in the public service, civil or military--wherefore we know not. Whatever may have been the reason, as he was without fortune he supported himself for several years by giving lessons in mathematics. {722} After a while, however, he was appointed repeater and examiner in the Polytechnic School, which position he held till the revolution of 1848. His profession as well as his apt.i.tudes devoted him to the study of the exact sciences; but he cherished a far higher ambition, and already aspired to be the reformer and prophet of the human race. That this thought, was early germinating in his mind, is proved by a pamphlet which he published in 1822, when only twenty-four years of age, ent.i.tled "_Systeme de Politique Positiviste_" (System of Positivist Politics). He subsequently greatly modified and enlarged it, and his pretensions above all greatly expanded as he advanced; but the first idea of his system, not difficult, however, to discover, it must be acknowledged was deposited in that publication.

About this time he became connected with Henri Claude de Saint-Simon, and being much younger than the founder of Saint-Simonism, he naturally yielded to his influence, and became very near being absorbed in the G.o.d of the Rue de Taitbout. But Auguste Comte could not consent to that; he would be master not disciple, and therefore, after having written some articles in the Saint-Simonian journal, _Le Producteur_, he abandoned the sect, separated from Saint-Simon, and lamented bitterly the precious time which that _depraved juggler_, as he called him, had made him lose. After this rupture he was restored to himself and freed from all restraint; he could devote himself to the finishing stroke of the great work he meditated. [Footnote 108]

The solemn moment approached. Hitherto he had only staked out his ground and sown the seeds, but the synthesis, the real _cerebral_ unity, to use his language, was wanting. Without further delay he set himself resolutely at work, and a meditation continued for four score hours brought him to the conception, to the preamble as it were, of the systemization of the whole positive philosophy. [Footnote 109]

But, alas! the long meditation brought with the system an access of madness. It was slight at first, he a.s.sures us, a simple pa.s.sing enfeeblement of the cerebral organs, resulting from excessive labor; but the physicians took hold of it, and then the evil grew so much worse that it became necessary to shut him up in a madhouse--him who had just discovered the law of the universe! M. Littre complains that one of his collaborators in the _Journal des Debats_ threw up this fact against the doctrine of his master, and he cites instances of very superior men who have had similar accidents befal them. This cannot be denied. No one can say that he is secure from such cruel attacks; but we may be permitted to remark that there is here an intimate correlation between the doctrine and the mental malady, since both are produced at the same time and by the same intellectual effort.

[Footnote 108: M. de Chalambert forgets to add that the cause of this rapture was precisely the attempt of Saint-Simon, after having failed to kill himself, to found a new religion, which he called _Nouveau Christianisme_, and of which the positive religion professed afterwards by M. Comte is only a manifest plagiarism.--TRANSLATOR]

[Footnote 109: A useless labor, for he might have learned it from that _depraved juggler_, Saint-Simon, who had reached it as early as 1804. Auguste Comte never made any advance on his master, but to the last remained rather behind him. With all his pretensions to originality, he was never anything more than the disciple of Saint-Simon.--TRANSLATOR.]

Two or three years pa.s.sed thus, after which M. Comte, having recovered his health, resumed his labors, and in 1829 published the first volume of his "_Cours de Philosophie Positive_," in which for the first time he gives the princ.i.p.al data of his new theory. Five other volumes, of eight or nine hundred pages each, followed at long intervals, and it was only in 1842 that the work could be completed; not that ideas were wanting, but money to pay the printers, as the author himself tells us. During that time he opened a course of lectures, in which, under pretext of teaching astronomy, he essayed to indoctrinate the public in his principles. Thanks to these several methods of propagating his views, he at length succeeded in gaining a {723} few disciples, not numerous, indeed, but enough to encourage the hope of obtaining more.

Among those who from that time adhered to the positivist doctrine we must cite M. Etex, an artist, M. Vieillard, a politician who, then unknown, afterward obtained some note, and, in fine, M. Littre, a philologist, a litterateur, and a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. This last especially was an important recruit, an unhoped-far good fortune for the new school. M. Comte (they who have tried to read him know it but too well!) was essentially deficient in the art of explaining and expressing his ideas. M. Littre knows precisely how to write, if not with brilliancy, at least with method and clearness. Moreover, he had under his influence an important public organ, _The National_, and used it to the profit of the new philosophy. In 1844, M. Littre published in that journal, of which he was an editor, a series of articles in which he extolled the positivist philosophy, declared himself its disciple, and carried his complaisance toward the master so far as to give him the brevet of a man of genius. However, unknown to him perhaps, a great transformation was about to be effected; the _affective_ element of the new doctrine, hitherto neglected, was about to make its way to the light and play its part.

Toward that epoch, M. Comte encountered a woman, still young, Madame Clotilde de Vaux, who lived separate from her husband. The misfortunes of this unhappy wife, misunderstood and deserted, touched him deeply; he received her into his house, and forthwith she became his Beatrix, or, rather, his Egeria, for it was from her that he received the revelation of the new dogmas which he hastened to promulgate to the world. All at once, under the inspired influence of Madame Clotilde de Vaux, the positivist philosophy is changed into a religion, in which the _affective_ element decidedly predominates. With dogma and morals, worship and the priesthood are promptly organized. The sovereign pontificate belonged as a matter of right to M. Comte, and he would no doubt have willingly shared it with his _holy_ companion, but she, alas! had already been removed by a premature death, and he must be resigned to proclaim himself alone, high priest or sovereign pontiff.

This metamorphosis was so much the bolder as. .h.i.therto one of the princ.i.p.al theses of the positivist philosophy had been precisely that the time for religion was gone, and gone for ever. It might well startle the adepts; but it failed to frighten M. Littre, the most important among them, for we find him using still _The National_ and preaching in its columns, with all the zeal of the neophyte, the dogmas of the new religion--the religion of humanity. This was, it is true, in 1851, when each day saw born and die some new sect, and M.

Littre and _The National_ no doubt judged that, socialism for socialism, M. Comte's socialism was worth as much as any other, and in fact was more convenient. We are inclined, nevertheless, to believe that M. Littre was really smitten and vanquished (for what is there in the way of new religions of which a free thinker is not capable?), and we are confirmed in our belief because, not content to aid the establishment of the new worship with his pen, he actually contributed to it from his purse. The republic of 1848 was not a good mother for M. Comte, although he hailed it with enthusiastic acclamations and p.r.o.nounced it immortal; it despoiled him at once of his means of subsistence. M. Comte was little relished by the _savans_, and relished them still less, especially those of the Academy of Sciences, who had obstinately refused to open their doors to him. M. Arago, to whom M. Comte attributed his disgrace, judging, doubtless, that there must be some incompatibility between the dignity of high priest and the functions of a repeater and examiner in the Polytechnic {724} School, deprived him of these two employments, from which he drew his support. M. Littre then came generously to the aid of his spiritual father, and headed an annual subscription by which the adepts must provide for the wants of their pontiff.

While these things were in progress there came the _coup d'etat_ of the 2d of December. M. Comte bore this trial with a scandalous resignation. The faithful, M. Littre among others, refused henceforward all active concurrence. But, on another side he found in M. Vieillard, become a senator of the new empire, a useful protector, and, thanks to him, he could soon resume his preachments. It was, in fact, all he desired, for he was singularly free from all political ambition.

From this moment M. Comte's religious zeal only augmented, and his pen became more active and prolific than ever. From 1851 to 1854 he published four huge volumes under the t.i.tle of "_Systeme de Politique Positiviste_;" then a "_Catechisme Positiviste_," a "_Calendrier Positiviste_," and announced new works for the following years, when death took him by surprise and cut short his labors. It cannot be said that his efforts were crowned with success, and that the numbers of his disciples was increasing; on the contrary, solitude was gathering closer and closer around him; but his faith was not shaken, and he remained to the last full of confidence in the future. If _occidentality_ gave little, he hoped much from _orientality_, and, in 1852, he wrote to the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, and to the Sultan of Turkey, to induce them to undertake to propagate positivism in their respective dominions, by representing to them that it was the only means of salvation that remained to them.

Such is the succinct history of the positivist philosophy and religion. The religion, indeed, ended with its founder, for he declared a short time before his death that he had found no true believer worthy to succeed him in the pontificate; but the philosophy left disciples who, though they may not accept it in all its parts, yet continue to be inspired by its principles. Not long since they had an organ in the _Revue Philosophique_, in which they showed themselves much divided, and gravely discussed the question whether it must be a philosophy or a religion with which they should gratify the human race. They seem, however, after the advice of M. Littre, to have finally agreed that it is necessary first of all to reproduce the eighteenth century; that is to say, to renew, in the name of the emanc.i.p.ated flesh, the war against the Church and the religion of the spirit. Events have seemed to favor them, and instead of regretting the suspension of public liberty, by the establishment of the new empire, they even greet it as an advantage, since they remind us that it was under a similar _regime_ that the encyclopaedic work of which they claim to be the legal heirs was born, grew, and prospered. In short, M. Littre published, a short while ago, a new _brochure_ under the t.i.tle of "_Partoles de Philosophie Positive_," in which he sustains all the principles of his master, and vindicates for himself the honor of having been his most faithful disciple.

We have joined the names of M. H. Taine with the names of Messrs.

Comte and Littre, although he has never openly avowed himself an adherent of their school. But, beside the ident.i.ty of his principles with those of positivism, the lightness of his philosophical luggage does not permit us to devote to him a separate study. We know of him on this subject only by the book ent.i.tled "_Les Philosophes Francais du dix-neuvieme siecle_" (French Philosophers of the Nineteenth Century), a superficial work, but agreeable, in which he judges with wit, sometimes with justice, the chief representatives of the eclectic philosophy, and to which he has added a concluding chapter that gives us an exposition of his method. It is to this {725} method which we shall, farther on, devote a few words. [Footnote 110]

[Footnote 110: M. de Taine has, since this article was written, published a work on English writers and literature, which has in certain quarters been well spoken of, and which really has some merit, though of a lighter sort.--TRANSLATOR. ]

II.

It will readily be perceived that we cannot even attempt to set forth within our limits the positivist religion and philosophy in all their details and developments, and that we must confine ourselves to their chief points or leading principles. We shall take our a.n.a.lysis from the works of M. Comte himself, and from the series of letters which M.

Littre formerly inserted in _The National_, and which he has since republished in a volume ent.i.tled _Revolution, Positivism, Conservatism_, Paris, 1851. M. Littre has reproduced the ideas of the master with a fidelity and disinterestedness rare in a disciple, and he has over the master the advantage of style and method.

Positivism a.s.sumes as its starting point that modern society is suffering from a deeply rooted evil, that it is like a man in a fever who tosses and turns in his bed, seeking a position in which he may rest at ease, and finding none. Do what it will it can find no stable position. In vain has it effected immense progress, for this very progress turns to its disadvantage. Beside, what does progress avail if society cannot enjoy it in order and peace? But whence comes this evil, this trouble, this feverish and sterile agitation? Evidently it comes from intellectual and moral anarchy. n.o.body any longer believes in anything; there is no longer any law, any principle, that unites all minds in a common symbol; every one draws from himself; divided egotisms are in mutual conflict, and seek each other's destruction. If such is the nature of the malady, the remedy is obvious. It must be in obtaining a doctrine which accepted by all becomes the doctrine of all, a bond of union for them, and the principle of peace.

But where is this doctrine to be found? Is it a religious doctrine-- Catholicity, for instance? The Catholic doctrine, indeed, gave formerly the result desired, and realized in the world an incomparable unity; but it has had its day; science has demonstrated the impossibility of its dogmas, and it, in fact, finds now only here and there a real believer--the great majority have ceased to believe it.

Will Protestantism supply the doctrine needed? No; for Protestantism is only a degenerate and illogical Catholicism. Will Islamism give it?

Islamism has certainly its grand sides, but its morality is too defective, and its dogma is hardly less repulsive than the Christian.

It is, then, manifest that all existing religions are impotent for the future to rally and unite in a common bond the minds of men. But as religion cannot do it, perhaps philosophy, metaphysics, can?

Metaphysics is only the abstract form of religion, resting on the same basis and sustained by it, and does nothing but subst.i.tute abstract beings that have no reality for the supernatural beings imagined by religion, and which science equally rejects. Metaphysics has, as religion, been indeed useful, has aided science to show the inanity of religions dogmas; but, if useful in the work of destruction, it is impotent in that of rebuilding, and can henceforth serve only to perpetuate intellectual anarchy--that is to say, only aggravate the evil instead of curing it. If, then, the remedy can be found neither in religion nor in metaphysics, where can it be found?

It is to be found in a doctrine which subst.i.tutes for the supernatural beings of religion, and the abstract ent.i.ties of metaphysics, the real beings which science demonstrates, and the existence of which n.o.body disputes or can dispute. But how find or how construct such a doctrine? The experience of what has been done in the exact sciences gives distinctly enough the answer. There was a time when mathematics, astronomy, physics, did not exist, and when men explained all the phenomena {726} of nature by chimerical hypotheses. Now, how has man come forth from that ignorance? By observing instead of imagining, as he had hitherto done; and in observing phenomena he discovered their laws, and thus, with time and effort, he succeeded in creating the sciences which are called mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry.

Can we doubt, after this, that by applying the same method or following the same process in regard to the science of individual man, or _biology_, and the science of society, or _sociology_, we shall obtain the same result? And let it not be said that these sciences are of another order; the distinction attempted to be established between them and the exact sciences is puerile and unfounded, as science exists only on condition of being exact, and if not exact it is not science. Biology and sociology have, it is true, not yet the character of exact sciences; but why have they not? Simply because they are as yet in their infancy, as was chemistry two centuries ago; because, on the one hand, they have been badly studied, and, on the other, because they are more complex and less easily mastered. The difficulties, it is admitted, are therefore great; but it is necessary to conquer them, since the salvation of the world can be secured on no other condition.

The terms of the problem are now distinctly stated, together with the method of its solution. The malady from which society suffers is intellectual anarchy, and intellectual anarchy will cease only when we have made of the sciences of biology and sociology (it is known what these sciences mean) sciences as exact as are mathematics, astronomy, etc.; and to do this it is only necessary to use the same method in constructing them that is used in constructing the so-called exact sciences.

However, the whole is not yet said. Observation is, indeed, the true method, but observation of what? Of moral phenomena, the operations of the soul? But what is the soul? Who has seen it? Certain metaphysicians have, indeed, pretended to derive all science from the phenomena of the soul; but this is a gross error; psychology is an impossible science. In psychology the subject, or rather the organ which observes, is precisely that which is observed--the eye striving to see itself. To what, then, is observation to be applied? To the body, to the cerebral organs, and, primarily, to the external world; to the inorganic world at first, afterward to the organic world, to minerals, plants, animals. The study of animals is especially serviceable, since man, at most, has over the animal only the advantage of some superior intellectual faculties, and even that advantage appears doubtful, observes M. Comte, if we compare the acts of the mammiferae, the most elevated, with those of savages, the least developed.

After zoology, the most useful science is phrenology, the science which best teaches us what man really is. Dr. Gall under this relation has rendered an immense service, and created the true science of man.

He erred, it is true, by too minute detail, and in wishing to determine at once the organs of theft, luxury, etc., which gave fair scope to criticism; [Footnote 111] but it would be difficult to resist the acc.u.mulated proofs on which he had established his system.

In short, science is now in the position to give a cla.s.sification of eighteen interior functions of the brain, or a systematic _tableau_ of the soul. Thus it is neither from metaphysics nor from religion, but from zoology, and, above all, from phrenology, that we must seek the knowledge of the laws which govern intelligence.

[Footnote 111: Nothing is new under the sun, says Solomon. Any one curious on the subject of phrenology may read, as M. Cousin has well remarked, in Plato's _Timoeus_, all that Gall and Spurzheim, and their followers, have really established in their pretended science.--TRANSLATOR.]

However, _method_ alone does not suffice. There is needed also a _criterion_, and here M. Comte confesses that the difficulty is great.

To observe with profit, to be able, by observation, to abstract from the {727} phenomena their laws, we most have an anterior law, a type-law, to serve as the term of comparison, in like manner as a standard is necessary to determine the value of a coin. Now, what furnishes this type? Observation? But this is only to recommence the difficulty. The embarra.s.sment can be relieved only by reasoning from a.n.a.logy, and a historical theory. Positivism, after all, then, resorts to reasoning and theorizing! The sciences which are firmly seated on positive realities began in hypotheses, and it has been by the aid of hypotheses, ascertained afterward to be false, that observation has succeeded in discovering the real laws of these sciences! It must be the same with biology and sociology. Humanity began by religion, and religion has pa.s.sed through three phases, fetichism, polytheism, and monotheism. Religion, truly, is only a fiction, but a useful fiction, and even necessary to the development of humanity. Fetichism, in offering plants to the adoration of man, taught him to cultivate them; polytheism, in creating supernatural beings, gave birth to poetry and the fine arts; monotheism, in elevating minds, has fitted them for the culture of science. After religion came metaphysics, which, by transforming the dogmas into abstractions, destroyed them; and, by destroying them, opened the way for positivism. Now, what has taken place for humanity in general must be reproduced for each man in particular; each one of us must pa.s.s through the religious state and the metaphysical state before we can arrive at the positivist state.

Thus, then, in like manner as it has been by means of false hypotheses that the real laws of the science have been discovered, so by means of hypotheses equally false, religion and metaphysics, will be discovered the true laws of biology.

We confess that we do not very clearly perceive what relation there is between this theory and the problem to be solved. The problem is how to find a criterion by the aid of which the true may be distinguished from the false; but this criterion escapes us still, and we have for it only a second method superposed on the first, or history coming to the aid of physiology. True, we are not told what bond connects the two methods, or how we are to combine them, and from their combination obtain the type-law; but we must not be too difficult, and we forewarn our readers that they must not look for any real connection, any logical nexus, between the various propositions which we are about to place before them. Beyond the gross materialism which follows necessarily from the positivist premises, all is arbitrary and capricious; the master says it, and he must be believed on his word, without being asked for reasons, good or bad. Our readers will judge for themselves if this be not so, and that they may not accuse us of exaggerating anything, we shall give generally textual citations.

After having presented the formula of its method, or rather of its two methods, the positivist school proceeds to the application and exposition of the consequences which are derived from it or them.

In the very outset they a.s.sert that there are no absolute truths, that all truth is relative; the true, the good, the fair, are such only by a provisional t.i.tle; what was virtue yesterday may be crime to-day, and what is crime to-day may be virtue to-morrow. Thus speaks M.

Littre:

"The positivist philosophy is experimental; ... . it is composed of relative not absolute notions... . When man, in the beginning of his scientific career, launched into unrestricted researches after the absolute, he had only this way open to him; now another way has been opened, that of experience and induction. This way cannot conduct the inquirer to absolute notions, and when we demand them of reason we demand of her more than she has. The mind of man is neither absolute nor infinite, and to try to obtain from it absolute {728} solutions is to go out of the _immutable_ conditions of human nature." [Footnote 112]--_Littre, Conservatism, Revolution, and Positivism_, pp. 5, 38.

[Footnote 112: M. de Chalambert might here reply, granting man has no infinite or absolute _notions_, which no finite mind can have, it by no means follows that he has no notions or conceptions of that which is infinite and absolute, or intuitions of necessary, eternal, and immutable truth, as are the first principles of all science, religion, and morals.--TRANSLATOR. ]

If there are no absolute truths, then there is no G.o.d:

"This conclusion," says M. Littre "rests on the decisive results of all scientific exploration during the long course of the ages, namely, that nothing of what is called first cause is accessible to the human mind, and the origin of the world can be explained neither by many G.o.ds nor by one G.o.d alone, neither by nature, chance, nor atoms. This result, erected into a principle, gradually takes possession of modern intelligence, and bears in its womb the social organization of the future of the race... . If, for a childish and individual satisfaction, the idea of some theological being, one or manifold, is retained, it is necessary to reduce the conception forthwith to a nullity, and to purely nominal and supererogatory functions; for the result of scientific investigation is, that there is in the course of things no trace of miracle or government from above, and nothing but an unbroken chain of laws modifiable, within certain limits, by the action from age to age of mankind. As Laplace says, such a being is henceforth a useless hypothesis."--_lb. pp_. 279, 298.

The soul has no existence distinct from that of the body, and therefore dies with it:

"This belief (concerning the survivance of the soul), which might be true, is not found to be so; science (always science!) has not been able to establish a single fact whatever of a life after death; and so, like a pond no longer alimented by inflowing streams, the opinion of an individual perpetuity gradually evaporates."--_lb., pp._128.

There is room for liberty only because the biological phenomena are very complex:

"No science," says M. Littre (_ib_., p. 114), "if the phenomenon has no law, and no power (liberty) if not complex enough to offer us struggles duly proportioned to the complication."

It follows from this that the effect of the progress of science must be to diminish human liberty, since in proportion as it elucidates questions it diminishes their complexity.