A General View of Positivism - Auguste Comte (the snowy day read aloud TXT) 📗

the intellect is far more unwilling to take a subordinate position. Its rash ambition is far more unsettling to the world than the ambition of rank and wealth, against which it so often inveighs. It is the hardest of social problems to regulate the exercise of the intellectual powers, while securing them their due measure of influence; the object being that theoretical power should be able really to modify, and yet should never be permitted to govern. For the nations of antiquity this problem was insoluble; with them the intellect was always either a tyrant or a slave. The solution was attempted in the Middle Ages; but without success, owing to the military and theological character of the times. Positivism relies for solving it on the reality which is one of its principal features, and on the fact that Society has now entered on its industrial phase. Based on accurate inquiry into the past and future destinies of man, its aim is so to regenerate our political action, as to transform it ultimately into a practical worship of Humanity; Morality being the worship rendered by the affections, Science and Poetry that rendered by the intellect. Such is the principal mission of the Occidental priesthood, a mission in which women and the working classes will actively cooperate.

The most important object of this regenerated polity will be the substitution of Duties for Rights; thus subordinating personal to social considerations. The word “Right” should be excluded from political language, as the word “Cause” from the language of philosophy. Both are theological and metaphysical conceptions; and the former is as immoral and subversive as the latter is unmeaning and sophistical. Both are alike incompatible with the final state; and their value during the revolutionary period of modern history has simply consisted in their solvent action upon previous systems. Rights, in the strict sense of the word, are possible only so long as power is considered as emanating from a superhuman will. Rights, under all theological systems, were divine; but in their opposition to theocracy, the metaphysicians of the last five centuries introduced what they called the rights of Man; a conception, the value of which consisted simply in its destructive effects. Whenever it has been taken as the basis of a constructive policy, its antisocial character, and its tendency to strengthen individualism have always been apparent. In the Positive state, where no supernatural claims are admissible, the idea of “Right” will entirely disappear. Everyone has duties, duties towards all; but rights in the ordinary sense can be claimed by none. Whatever security the individual may require is found in the general acknowledgment of reciprocal obligations; and this gives a moral equivalent for rights as hitherto claimed, without the serious political dangers which they involved. In other words, no one has in any case any Right but that of doing his Duty. The adoption of this principle is the one way of realizing the grand ideal of the Middle Ages, the subordination of Politics to Morals. In those times, however, the vast bearings of the question were but very imperfectly apprehended; its solution is incompatible with every form of theology, and is only to be found in Positivism.

The solution consists in regarding our political and social action as the service of Humanity. Its object should be to assist by conscious effort all functions, whether relating to Order or to Progress, which Humanity has hitherto performed spontaneously. This is the ultimate object of Positive religion. Without it all other aspects of that religion would be inadequate, and would soon cease to have any value. True affection does not stop short at desire for good; it strains every effort to attain it. The elevation of soul arising from the act of contemplating and adoring Humanity is not the sole object of religious worship. Above and beyond this there is the motive of becoming better able to serve Humanity; unceasing action on our part being necessary for her preservation and development. This indeed is the most distinctive feature of Positive religion. The Supreme Being of former times had really little need of human services. The consequence was, that with all theological believers, and with monotheists especially, devotion always tended to degenerate into quietism. The danger could only be obviated when the priesthood had sufficient wisdom to take advantage of the vagueness of these theories, and to draw from them motives for practical exertion. Nothing could be done in this direction unless the priesthood retained their social independence. As soon as this was taken from them by the usurpation of the temporal power, the more sincere amongst Catholics lapsed into the quietistic spirit which for a long time had been kept in check. In Positivism, on the contrary, the doctrine itself, irrespective of the character of its teachers, is a direct and continuous incentive to exertion of every kind. The reason for this is to be found in the relative and dependent nature of our Supreme Being, of whom her own worshippers form a part.

In this, which is the essential service of Humanity, and which infuses a religious spirit into every act of life, the feature most prominent is cooperation of effort; cooperation on so vast a scale that less complicated organisms have nothing to compare with it. The consensus of the social organism extends to Time as well as Space. Hence the two distinct aspects of social sympathy: the feeling of Solidarity, or union with the Present; and of Continuity, or union with the Past. Careful investigation of any social phenomenon, whether relating to Order or to Progress, always proves convergence, direct or indirect, of all contemporaries and of all former generations, within certain geographical and chronological limits; and those limits recede as the development of Humanity advances. In our thoughts and feelings such convergence is unquestionable; and it should be still more evident in our actions, the efficacy of which depends on cooperations to a still greater degree. Here we feel how false as well as immoral