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

a new constitution to be set on foot, and the usual time to be spent in the process of elaborating it, public opinion will very possibly discard it before it is completed; not allowing it even the short average duration of former constitutions. Any attempt to check free discussion on the subject would defeat its own object; since free discussion is the natural consequence of our intellectual and social position.

The same conditions which require our policy to be provisional while the spiritual interregnum lasts, point also to the mode in which this provisional policy should be carried out. Had the revolutionary government of the Convention continued till the end of the war, it would probably have been prolonged up to the present time. But in one most important respect a modification would have been necessary. During the struggle for independence what was wanted was a vigorous dictatorship, combining spiritual with temporal powers: a dictatorship even stronger than the old monarchy, and only distinguished from despotism by its ardour in the cause of progress. Without complete concentration of political power, the republic could never have been saved. But with peace the necessity for such concentration was at an end. The only motive for still continuing the provisional system was the absence of social convictions. But this would also be a motive for giving perfect liberty of speech and discussion, which till then had been impossible or dangerous. For liberty was a necessary condition for elaborating and diffusing a new system of universal principles, as the only sure basis for the future regeneration of society.

This hypothetical view of changes which might have taken place in the Conventional government, may be applied to the existing condition of affairs. It is the policy best adapted for the republican government which is now arising in all the security of a settled peace, and yet amidst the most entire anarchy of opinion. The successors of the Convention, men unworthy of their task, degraded the progressive dictatorship entrusted to them by the circumstances of the time into a retrograde tyranny. During the reign of Charles X, which was the last phase of the reaction, the central power was thoroughly undermined by the legal opposition of the parliamentary or local power. The central government still refused to recognize any limits to its authority; but the growth of free thought made its claims to spiritual jurisdiction more and more untenable, leaving it merely the temporal authority requisite for public order. During the neutral period which followed the counterrevolution, the dictatorship was not merely restricted to its proper functions, but was legally destroyed; that is the local power as represented by parliament took the place of the central power. All pretentions to spiritual influence were abandoned by both; their thoughts being sufficiently occupied with the maintenance of material order. The intellectual anarchy of the time made this task difficult enough; but they aggravated the difficulty by unprincipled attempts to establish their government on the basis of pure self-interest, irrespectively of all moral considerations. The restoration of the republic and the progressive spirit aroused by it has no doubt given to both legislative and executive a large increase of power: to an extent indeed which a few years back would have caused violent antipathy. But it would be a grievous error for either of them to attempt to imitate the dictatorial style of the Conventional government. Unsuccessful in any true sense as the attempt would be, it might occasion very serious disturbances, which like the obsolete metaphysical principles in which they originate, would be equally dangerous to Order and to Progress.

We see, then, that in the total absence of any fixed principles on which men can unite, the policy required is one which shall be purely provisional, and limited almost entirely to the maintenance of material order. If order be preserved, the situation is in all other respects most favourable to the work of mental and moral regeneration which will prepare the way for the society of the future. The establishment of a republic in France disproves the false claims set up by official writers in behalf of constitutional government, as if it was the final issue of the Revolution. Meantime there is nothing irrevocable in the republic itself, except the moral principle involved in it, the absolute and permanent preponderance of Social Feeling; in other words, the concentration of all the powers of Man upon the common welfare. This is the only maxim of the day which we can accept as final. It needs no formal sanction, because it is merely the expression of feelings generally avowed, all prejudices against it having been entirely swept away. But with the doctrines and the institutions resulting from them, through which this dominion of social feeling is to become an organized reality, the republic has no direct connection; it would be compatible with many different solutions of the problem. Politically, the only irrevocable point is the abolition of monarchy, which for a long time has been in France and to a less extent throughout the West, the symbol of retrogression.

That spirit of devotion to the public welfare, which is the noblest feature of republicanism, is strongly opposed to any immediate attempts at political finality, as being incompatible with conscientious endeavours to find a real solution of social problems. For before the practical solution can be hoped for, a systematic basis for it must exist: and this we can hardly expect to find in the remnants left to us of the old creeds. All that the true philosopher desires is simply that the question of moral and intellectual reorganization shall be left to the unrestricted efforts of thinkers of whatever school. And in advocating this cause, he will plead the interests of the republic, for the safety of which it is of the utmost importance that no special set of principles should be placed under official patronage. Republicanism then, will do far more to protect free thought, and resist political encroachment, than was