II.
In the latter part of his life, Comte drew out precisely the features of what he henceforth called the new Great Being. Although we were not here to undertake to write an account of positive religion, we must nevertheless, in a few words, indicate the form which this supreme idea ended by assuming in Comte’s mind.
Firstly, humanity is not conceived simply as the sum of all the individuals or human groups present, past and future. For all men are necessarily born children of humanity; but all do not become her servants. Many remain in the condition of parasites. All those who are not or were not “sufficiently assimilable,”[362] all those who were only a burden to our species, do not form a part of the Great Being. A selection takes place among men. Some finally enter into humanity never to leave it; others leave it never to return. The selection takes place according to the life they have preferred. Those who have lived in the purely biological sense of the word, that is to say, those in whom the higher faculties have been made to serve the organic function, those whom with brutal energy Comte calls “producteurs de fumier,”[363] will only have been part of humanity in a transitory manner. Death for them, as for their anatomical system, will be an end without further appeal. Those in whom the “sublime inversion” has been accomplished, or at least those who have made an effort to subordinate the organic to the higher functions, those finally who have worked for a pre-eminently human end: to make the intellect predominate over the inclinations, and altruism over egoism; those having lived for humanity will always live in her. human end: to make the intellect predominate over the inclinations, and altruism over egoism; those having lived for humanity will always live in her.
As the conduct of each one can only be finally judged after his death, humanity is essentially made up of the dead and “the admission of the living within her will hardly ever be more than provisional.”[364] Each generation, while it lives, furnishes the indispensable physiological substratum for the exercise of the superior human functions. But this privilege which momentarily distinguishes it from the others, soon slips away from it, as it slipped away from the preceding ones, and from the men of which they were composed; they alone who are worthy of it are incorporated into humanity. Moreover, they are only incorporated in it by their noblest elements. Death causes them to pass through a “purification.”
This theory allows Comte to attain at the same time two results, which he considers equally desirable. In the first place, the religious idea of humanity remains in perfect accordance with the idea given of it by biology and sociology. Humanity conceived as the Great Being, is a kind of hypostasis of the functions by which man tends to become distinguished from the animal. It is the progressive realisation through time, of the intellectual and moral potentialities contained in human nature: it is also its ideal impersonation. In this last sense, it becomes an object of love and adoration. Thus, the positivist religion naturally leads to a “commemoration” of great men, the benefactors of humanity. Here we have one of the ideas which were defined very early in Comte’s mind.
On the other hand, the desire for immortality is very strong in the heart of man. On principle Comte recognised at any rate a provisional value in all that arises spontaneously from human nature. In science he saw a prolongation of “public reason,” in systematic morality a development of spontaneous morality. He was thus led to take into account the almost irresistible tendency which impels man to desire to triumph over death.[365] This tendency, up to the present time, has satisfied itself by means of illusions. But beliefs of this kind have become incompatible with the progress of our mental evolution. Moreover, the social efficacy of hopes and fears concerning the future life has been much exaggerated. As a matter of fact, says Comte (and the science of religions bears him out on this point), the tendency to desire, and consequently to accept the idea of an ultimate survival, existed for a long time before it was made use of to support religious beliefs or to preserve public order. Here, again, positive philosophy does not deny, does not destroy: it transforms. To the chimerical and vulgar notion of objective immortality, it substitutes the notion, which is alone acceptable, of subjective immortality. The same doctrine which takes from us the consolations so dear to past generations, gives us an adequate compensation, by allowing each one to hope that he may be united to the Great Being.
“To continue to live in others,” is a very real mode of existence.[366] It is the only one which we can hope for after death; but it is also the only one which we ought to desire, if it be true that what most constitutes ourselves in us does not consist in the individual in the biological sense of the word, but truly in intelligence and good will, that is to say, in the social and human element. He who has only lived for himself, who has selfishly sought for life, has lost it: for death takes him away altogether. He who has lived for others, he who has not sought life for himself, has found it: for he survives in others. In the religions of the past, salvation was found in union with God: in the positive religion, salvation is found in union with humanity.
Once incorporated in the Great Being, the individual becomes inseparable from it.[367] Being from that time withdrawn from the influence of all the physical laws, he only remains subjected to the higher laws which regulate directly the evolution of humanity. Being even withdrawn from the influence of the laws of time and space, he can live again at the same time in several organisms. Do we not see that the thought of a poet, of an artist, of a man of science revives in a great number of living men at the same time on the most distant points of the globe? Subjective immortality, renewed by an uninterrupted sequence of successive resurrections, will last as long as humanity itself. “To live with the dead,” says Comte “constitutes one of our most precious privileges.”[368] But, in the same way, the dead live with us. They live in us, and those who have been most truly men, those who have made humanity by the effort of their intellect and their will, they are within us the best and most lasting part of ourselves. For, when our generation disappears, it is this part of us which will survive. We shall also survive in the measure in which we have contributed to the increase of this inheritance, in the measure in which we shall have deserved well of our contemporaries and our successors. The present life is a trial. The “subjective” life, that is to say, incorporation into humanity, is at once a liberation and a reward for those who have passed victoriously through this trial.[369] We see to what extent the old moral and religious ideal subsists in the positive conception. We are little surprised at this, when we know that, towards the end of his life, Comte made the Imitation his daily reading.
It is then towards the idea of humanity as their centre that the scientific, social and religious ideas of Auguste Comte converge. If this convergence be perfect, his work is accomplished. Henceforth mental and moral anarchy is cured; political and religious anarchy is about to disappear. Unity will be everywhere re-established. This is already done in the understanding, since henceforth all our conceptions are homogenous, that is to say positive, since the same method is made use of in all our researches, since finally the whole sum of the sciences is regulated from the social point of view. Unity is also accomplished in the whole soul, since the intellect, henceforth conscious of its laws and of its essential functions, subjects itself to the heart, to be directed by love. Finally, unity will be brought about in society, since a new spiritual power, possessed of universally admitted principles, will give to all men and women a common education, will teach them all the same morality, and will rally them all within a same religion of love and goodness. The harmony which is realised in the individual soul is the symbol and, as it were, the guarantee of the harmony which will be established in the social body. Undoubtedly, obstacles remain to be overcome. The positive spirit must still struggle to become altogether universal. The old mental régime will not disappear without struggles which, Comte foresees, will be both formidable and bloody. But these crises, however acute they may be, cannot prevent the human evolution from taking place in accordance with its law.