IV.
The old régime was bound to perish because in it, the social organisation was connected with a system of beliefs and of dogmas which could not withstand the spirit of investigation. In order that the new régime may escape this cause of death, must it be able without suffering to bear the indefinite exercise of an absolute freedom of examination?——No, replies Comte, there is no system capable of enduring under these conditions. But it suffices that in constituting itself, the new faith, which is the basis of social order, should have undergone the test of free examination as we see it practised in the positive sciences. It suffices that, instead of a revealed faith, we should have a demonstrated faith which will then be immovable, and which will no more have to be called in question.
Comte then admits the preliminary test, but he is opposed to free examination indefinitely renewed. This distinction allows us to reconcile some of his declarations which otherwise would appear contradictory. His language differs according as he speaks of the positive dogma in the process of formation, or of that dogma once it has been formed. When it is in process of formation the dogma is subject to criticism, and if it is not victorious in resisting it it does not become an object of belief. No matter how much we may deplore the ever-dissolving energy of the spirit of analysis and of examination, it remains beneficial none the less, by compelling, for the intellectual and moral reorganisation, the production of a philosophy capable of sustaining the decisive test of a deep discussion, “freely prolonged until the entire conviction of public reason” has taken place. This is a condition from which nothing henceforth can exempt us.[317] The spiritual reorganisation, says Comte, will be the result of purely intellectual action. It supposes a voluntary and unanimous assent at the end of complete discussion without the intervention of the spiritual powers to hasten the conclusion.
But does it follow that freedom of examination should remain indefinitely without limits? Undoubtedly it has been a good thing that men should see in this liberty an indefeasible right which they were all to enjoy. The dissolution of old beliefs in this way was easier and more rapid. The better this “singular phase” in our social development is analysed, the more will the conviction gain ground that without the conquest and use of this unlimited freedom social reorganisation could not have been prepared. But this singular phase was a transitory one. When it has been gone through, when common principles have again become universally accepted, “after sufficient verification,” the right of examination will again return within its normal and permanent limits, which consist in discussing the connection of consequences with fundamental and uniformly respected rules, but without again questioning these rules themselves.[318]
The question then reduces itself to knowing when the test may be legitimately considered as at an end. Will the individual approbation of all the members of society be required, and a kind of consecration by universal suffrage? As a matter of fact, such unanimity will perhaps never be realised. In justice it is not necessary. When we demand it we forget that Politic science is a positive science, the highest and most complicated of all. No one possesses any authority in the sciences if he is not competent. The people has no thought of making its opinion prevail in them; and, in matters of science, all who are not in a condition to understand demonstrations are the people. The convergence of intellects presupposes the voluntary and intentional renunciation on the part of the greater number of their “sovereign right of examination.”[319]
In this way the right is taken from no one. The use of it is simply intrusted by those who are incompetent to the competent ones. This intrusting, freely accepted by all, lasts as long as the conditions which made it necessary. No moral order could be compatible with the “wandering liberty of minds at the present time,” if it were to persist indefinitely. It is not possible that any man, whether he be competent or not, should every day call into discussion the very bases of society. “Systematic tolerance cannot exist, and has never really existed, except on the subject of opinions which are regarded as indifferent or as doubtful.”[320]
Such is the meaning of the celebrated passages on liberty of conscience with which Comte has so often been reproached. He had written it in 1822, and quoted it himself in the fourth volume of the Cours de philosophie positive,[321] never suspecting that anything could be said against it. “There is no liberty of conscience in astronomy, in physics, in chemistry, in physiology, in the sense that everyone would deem it absurd not to take on trust the principles established in these sciences by competent men. If it is otherwise in politics, it is because the old principles have fallen, and, as the new ones are not yet formed, there are, properly speaking, in this interval no established principles.” It is then in no way a question of imposing beliefs upon men of which they are not to judge, by a kind of spiritual despotism. Comte merely wishes to extend to politics, considered as a positive science, what is admitted in the other sciences by common consent.
V.
Without much trouble, it is easy to see whence originate the essential features of this philosophy of history. In so far as it represents the development of humanity as subject to a law of evolution, which causes it to go through a succession of phases whose order is rationally determined, in a word as progress, the leading-idea is due to Comte’s “spiritual father,” to Condorcet.
For the interpretation of more recent events, and for the judgment passed upon the Middle Ages, Comte draws his inspiration from Joseph de Maistre, from the traditionalist school, and from Saint-Simon. To the latter, among other ideas, Comte owes the distinction between the critical and the organic periods. But, on Comte’s own confession, Joseph de Maistre’s influence over his mind was especially decisive. Like de Maistre, he thinks that the entirely negative philosophy of the XVIII. century knew very well how to destroy, but showed itself powerless to construct. Like de Maistre again, he is persuaded of the fact that social order requires a spiritual power beside the temporal power, and that the régime of the Middle Ages was a “masterpiece of political wisdom” precisely because at that period the Catholic Church had brought about the independence of the spiritual power. Finally, like de Maistre, he makes the salvation of humanity in the future depend upon their return to a unity of beliefs.
Comte then equally proceeds from the learned ideologist with whom the philosophical effort of the XVIII. century ends, and from the ardent traditionalist for whom this very century is the abhorred period of error and of moral perversion. He undertakes, not indeed to reconcile them (who can reconcile things which exclude each other?), but to found a more comprehensive doctrine in which he will combine what he has received from the one and the other. As such his own task appears to him, and he does not believe it to be above his power; he feels himself in a position to avoid the mistakes which his predecessors were bound to make. Condorcet had a clear idea of social science; but that did not prevent him from misunderstanding the real onward movement of the human mind, and only to estimate his own century justly at the expense of preceding periods. De Maistre in his turn, no less prejudiced, though in another way, does not understand history any better. To restore society, to re-establish it in the state in which it was in the XIII. century, he goes to absurd lengths. He claims to take no notice of the advance of civilisation, and of the development of the sciences. Condorcet, who brought to light the idea of progress, understood nothing in the Middle Ages. De Maistre, who so clearly saw the excellence of the Middle Ages, denies the glaring fact of progress.
Both are excusable, because they were still too close to the French Revolution to grasp its full meaning. In the heart of the fray they were still partially blinded. Comte, who sees things from a greater distance, also sees them from a higher standpoint. He especially has at his disposal an instrument which neither Condorcet nor de Maistre possessed: he has completed the positive method, and he applies it to the science of historical phenomena. In a word, he has founded Sociology.
If he did not push social science as far forward as he believed, at any rate he was right in thinking that his originality lay in this attempt. The problem was clearly set: to blend into a new and positive science the social ideas proceeding from the speculation of the XVIII. century with the historical truths brought to light by the adversaries of this philosophy. The solution given by Comte is the very soul of his system. By a twofold and vigorous effort, he created “social physics.” On the one hand, he carries to the past the idea of progress which Condorcet could only apply to the future, and this allowed him to institute a positive philosophy of history. At the same time, he projects into the future that spiritual order which de Maistre had only seen in the past, and this furnishes him with the frame for his “social reorganisation”.
This philosophy of history, which no longer contains anything metaphysical, is social dynamics; this “reorganisation” of society, by means of a spiritual power, will be the positive polity.