The Philosophy of Auguste Comte

by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl

II.

It does not come within the purpose of this work to give even a summary outline of the philosophy of history developed by Comte first in the Cours de philosophie positive, and then in the third volume of the Politique positive. Neither shall we disengage the ingenious or profound views of detail with which it abounds. It will suffice for us to show how, according to Comte, the laws of social dynamics are always verified, and how apparent exceptions end by being interpreted in the direction of these laws.

Fetichism, properly so-called, was succeeded by astrology, then by polytheism, which was first conservative (the régime of castes in Egypt), then intellectual (Greece), and social (the Roman empire). With the Christian religion monotheism comes to be substituted to polytheism. But does not the theory of progress soon meet with an insurmountable obstacle? How does it explain the Middle Ages, that long succession of centuries which Voltaire and the philosophers had described as full of darkness, of superstition, and of ignorance, as the disgrace of history? How to reconcile this lamentable “retrogression” with the “continuity” of progress affirmed by social dynamics?

Auguste Comte’s answer is presented in two forms.

In the first place the “retrogression” was never complete. At the time when the Middle Ages were at their darkest in Europe, Arab civilisation was going through its most brilliant period. In it many of the sciences were going beyond the extreme point reached by them in antiquity. The continuity of evolution was then not interrupted. It suffices to understand, in conformity with the postulate laid down by Comte at the beginning of social dynamics, that, at this period, the Arabs were the part of humanity whose intellectual evolution was most advanced, and who, consequently, represented the rest.

But, above all, the current opinion concerning the Middle Ages is erroneous. The philosophers of the XVIII. century did not know it. They only saw this period through their prejudices, or rather they did not deign to look at it. Nevertheless, the whole spiritual movement of modern centuries goes back to those “memorable times, unjustly qualified as dark by metaphysical criticism, of which Protestantism was the first organ.”[288]

In the first place—and this is a capital proposition in historical philosophy[289]—the feudal régime as a temporal organisation, was the natural result of the situation of the Roman world. In any case it would have been formed, even if the invasions had not taken place. In virtue of the consensus which is the fundamental principle of social statics, the other series of phenomena which accompanied the establishment of the feudal régime were then also produced as a “natural development,” and it is a misunderstanding to see in them an interruption of “progress.” The superiority of Antiquity over the Middle Ages, especially in the fine arts, will be raised as an objection. But Comte only recognises this superiority in the plastic arts, and especially in sculpture.[290] According to him, it is explained by certain features in Greek customs which were sure to make the people of antiquity incomparable in the art of expressing the beauty of the human form. For the rest, the æsthetic education of humanity “progressed during the Middle Ages. Architecture produced marvels of which antiquity had no idea. Dante is a unique poet. Modern music has its origin in the old Gregorian. Finally, the art of the Middle Ages presented two characteristics which the art of the aristocratic societies of antiquity did not possess, at least in the same degree. It was spontaneous, that is to say, in full natural harmony with the whole of the surrounding conditions. Consequently, it was popular, it expressed marvellously for the people, the very soul of the people.

If then it be true that “the mainspring of the fine arts is to be found under the sway of polytheism,” none the less has the development of our æsthetic faculties been continuous: and the law of progress has not been reversed. It is true that since antiquity these faculties have not found a combination of such favourable circumstances, such a direct and energetic stimulus; but that proves nothing “against their intrinsic activity, nor against the real merit of their productions.” The æsthetic spirit has become more widespread, more varied, and even more complete than it could ever have been in antiquity.[291] Hence it is that the Renaissance did more harm than good to the fine arts. It inspired an exclusive and servile admiration for the masterpieces of antiquity, which are related to an absolute social system. “In this sense,” says Comte, “the appreciation of the present romantic school only sins in the direction of historical exaggeration; but its recriminations are far from being groundless.”[292]

Similarly, the intellectual activity of the Middle Ages has been very unjustly treated. Certainly, positive philosophy cannot be suspected of partiality in favour of theological dogmas and metaphysical subtleties. But, just as in physics we distinguish the material changes, which are within reach of our senses, and the molecular movements which escape them, so at certain periods the human intellect produces outside itself works which testify to its activity, and at other moments, without being less active its labour remains an internal one. There are periods of secret and silent preparation. Such, for instance, was the first portion of the Middle Ages. Far from the human mind remaining stationary and inactive at that time it did, on the contrary, a very considerable work: it was creating the modern languages, that is to say, the indispensable instrument for subsequent progress of thought.

We must also be fair to two immense series of labours, (alchemy and astrology), which have contributed so greatly and for so long to the development of human reason. In coming after the astrologers and the alchemists, modern scientific men not only found “science roughly outlined by the perseverance of these bold precursors,”[293] they further received from them the indispensable principle of the invariability of natural laws. Astrology tended to suggest a high view of human wisdom. Alchemy restored the feeling of man’s power, which had been lowered by theological beliefs. In speaking of Roger Bacon, Comte goes so far as to say that the greater number of the scientific men of to-day who despise the Middle Ages so much, would be incapable not only of writing but even of reading “the great composition of this admirable monk,” on account of the immense variety of views on all orders of phenomena contained in it.[294]

Comte further enlarges with pleasure upon the mutual obligations of feudal tenure, “an admirable combination of the instinct of independence and of the feeling of devotion,” upon the appearance of chivalry, upon the raising of the condition of women, upon the enfranchisement of the commons upon the formation of the tiers état, etc.[295] Like the romantic school, being preoccupied with the duty of fighting the systematic detractors of the Middle Ages, he goes to the opposite extreme. He no longer sees the famines, the the plagues, the stakes, the interminable wars. He is not content with showing that, in spite of all, the Middle Ages was a period of progress. He wants it to be a model period, in which we should find the indication, in all essential aspects, of the programme which we are to realise to-day.[296]

The secret of Comte’s partiality for the Middle Ages is not hard to discover. He never tires of praising the Catholic organisation of this period, the separation of the temporal from the spiritual power,[297] last of all “the miracle of the papal hegemony.” Nothing of the kind was known in antiquity. That alone suffices to establish the superiority of the Middle Ages. Positive philosophy will restore this separation of the two powers to-day. It will complete the “admirable sketch” drawn of old by the Catholic Church.

Positivism, says Huxley, is “Catholicism minus Christianity.” Comte would not have protested very violently against this definition. Indeed, in the Catholicism of the Middle Ages, he distinguishes between the doctrine and the institutions. The doctrine is on the decline and will disappear. But the institutions were masterpieces of political wisdom, and they have only been ruined by having seemed to be inseparable from this doctrine. They ought to be re-established upon intellectual bases at once broader and more permanent.[298] Positive philosophy furnishes these bases. It will know how to restore the “government of souls,” according to the model left by the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages.

It has often been said that the social action of Catholicism was especially due to its moral teaching. Comte reverses this proposition. The moral efficacy of Catholicism principally depended upon the constitution of the Church, and only in an accessory way upon its doctrine.[299] Without the constant action of an organised spiritual power, a religion, however pure it may be, cannot have much power over the conduct of men. Catholicism had understood this. It had founded a system of common education which was equally received by rich and poor. Morality thus acquired the “ascendency which belongs to it.” The feelings were subjected to an admirable discipline, which exerted itself to uproot even the smallest seeds of corruption.[300]

To conclude, “the eternal honour”[301] of Catholicism is to have brought a decisive improvement into the theory of the social organism, by the separation of the two powers. Many causes have contributed to its being misunderstood; the excessive admiration of the modern historians for the city of classical times, the partiality of Protestants for the early Church, and finally the contempt of philosophers for the supposed darkness of the Middle Ages. We judge of it better to-day. Positive philosophy does not confine itself to rehabilitating the Catholic organisation: it takes it up again on its own account. “The more I investigate this immense subject,” writes Comte to John Stuart Mill, “the more confirmed I become in the view which I already held twenty years ago, at the time of my work upon the spiritual power, of regarding ourselves, we, systematic positivists, as the real successors of the great men of the Middle Ages, by taking up the social work again at the point to which Catholicism had carried it.”[302] Undoubtedly the conditions are not the same to-day, and we must take the differences into account. But as to the extent and the intensity of action, we may say that for each of the social relations on which the Catholic clergy had to pronounce, an analogous attribution exists for the modern spiritual power.[303] In a word, excepting for the dogma, Comte borrows from the Catholicism of the Middle Ages almost everything, its organisation, its régime, its worship, and, if he could, its clergy and its cathedrals. His religion will be a Catholicism raised upon another basis.