Bernard’s attitude is distinctly that of a positivist, and the general tone of his remarks as well as his attitude on many special points agrees with that of Comte. His conclusions regarding physiology are akin to those expressed by Comte concerning biology. Bernard excludes any metaphysical hypothesis such as the operation of a vital principle, and adheres strictly to physicochemical formulas. He accepts, however, Comte’s warning about the reduction of the higher to terms of the lower, or, in Spencerian phraseology, the explanation of the more complex by the less complex. Consequently, he carefully avoids the statement that he desires to “reduce” physiology to physics and chemistry. He makes no facile and light-hearted transition as did Spencer; on the contrary, he claims that the living has some specific quality which cannot be “reduced” to other terms, and which cannot be summed up in the formulae of physics or chemistry. The physiologist and the medical practitioner must never overlook the fact that every living being forms an organism and an individuality. The physiologist, continues Bernard, must take notice of this unity or harmony of the whole, even while he penetrates the interior to know the mechanism of each of its parts. The physicist and the chemist can ignore any notion of final causes in the facts they observe, but the physiologist must admit a harmonious finality, a harmony pre-established in the organism, whose actions form and express a unity and solidarity, since they generate one another. Life itself is creation; it is not capable of expression merely in physico-chemical formulae. The creative character, which is its essence, never can be so expressed. Bernard postulated an abstract, idée directrice et créatrice, presiding over the evolution of an organism. “Dans tout germe vivant, il y a une idée créatrice qui se développe et se manifeste par l’organisation. Pendant toute sa durée l’être vivant reste sous l’influence de cette même force vitale, créatrice, et la mort arrive lorsqu’elle ne peut plus se réaliser. Ici comme partout, tout dérive de l’idée, qui, seule, crée et dirige.”[[12]]
[12] Introduction à l’Etude de la Médécine expérimentale, p.151 ff.
The positivist spirit is again very marked in the doctrines of Berthelot (1827-1907), another very great friend of Renan, who, in addition to being a Senator, and Minister of Education and of Foreign Affairs, held the Chair of Organic Chemistry at the Collège de France. In 1886 he published his volume, Science et Philosophie, which contains some interesting and illuminating observations upon La Science idéale et la Science positive. Part of this, it may be noted, was written as early as 1863, in correspondence with Renan, and as a reply to a letter of his of which we shall speak presently.[[13]] Berthelot states his case with a clearness which merits quotation.
[13] See the Fragments of Renan, published 1876, pp 193-241. Reponse de M. Berthelot.
“Positive science,” he says, “seeks neither first causes nor the ultimate goal of things. In order to link together a multitude of phenomena by one single law, general in character and conformable to the nature of things, the human spirit has followed a simple and invariable method. It has stated the facts in accordance with observation and experience, compared them, extracted their relations, that is the general facts, which have in turn been verified by observation and experience, which verification constitutes their only guarantee of truth. A progressive generalisation, deduced from prior facts and verified unceasingly by new observations, thus brings our knowledge from the plane of particular and popular facts to general laws of an abstract and universal character. But, in the construction of this pyramid of science, everything from base to summit rests upon observation and experience. It is one of the principles of positive science that no reality can be established by a process of reasoning. The universe cannot be grasped by a priori methods.”
Like Comte, Berthelot believed in the progress of all knowledge through a theological and metaphysical stage to a definitely scientific or positive era. The sciences are as yet young, and we cannot imagine the development and improvement, social and moral, which will accrue from their triumph in the future. For Berthelot, as for Renan, the idea of progress was bound up essentially with the triumph of the scientific spirit. In a Discourse at the Sorbonne given in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of his being appointed Professor at the Collège de France, we find this faith in science reiterated. “To-day,” he remarks, “Science claims a triple direction of societies, materially, intellectually and morally. By this fact the role of the men of science, both as individuals and as a class, has unceasingly come to play a great part in modern states.”
These scientific men, Berthelot and Bernard, with whom Renan was on terms of friendship, had a large influence in the formation of his thought, after he had quitted the seminary and the Church. As a young man Renan possessed the positive spirit in a marked degree, and did not fail to disclose his enthusiasm for “Science” and for the scientific method. His book L’Avenir de la Science, which we have already noted, was written when he was only twenty-five, and under the immediate influence of the events of 1848, particularly the socialist spirit of Saint-Simon and the “organising” attitude of Auguste Comte. It did not, however, see publication until 1890, when the Empire had produced a pessimistic temper in him, later accentuated by the Commune and the Prussian War. The dominant note of the whole work is the touching and almost pathetic belief in Science, which leads the young writer to an optimism both in thought and in politics. “Science” constitutes for him the all-in-all. Although he had just previously abandoned the seminary, his priestly style remained with him to such a degree that even his treatment of science is characterised by a mixture of the unction of the curé and the subtilty of the dialectician. Levites were still to be necessary to the people of Israel, but they were to be the priests of the most High, whose name, according to Renan, was “Science.”
His ardour for Science is not confined to this one book: it runs through all his writings. Prospero, a character who personifies rational thought in L’Eau de Jouvence, one of Renan’s Drames philosophiques, expresses an ardent love for science continually. In his preface to Souvenirs d’Enfance et de Jeunesse we find Renan upon the same theme. Quaintly enough he not only praises the objectivity which is characteristic of the scientific point of view, but seems to delight in its abstraction. The superiority of modern science consists, he claims, in this very abstraction. But he is aware that the very indefatigability with which we fathom nature removes us, in a sense, further from her. He recognises how science leads away from the immediacy of vital and close contact with nature herself. “This is, however, as it should be,” asserts Renan, “and let no one fear to prosecute his researches, for out of this merciless dissection comes life.” He does not stay to assure us, or to enlighten us, as to how that life can be infused into the abstract facts which have resulted from the process of dissection. Fruitful and suggestive as many of his pages are, they fail to approach the concrete difficulties which this passage mentions.
Writing from Dinant in Brittany in 1863 to his friend, Berthelot, Renan gives his view of the Sciences of Nature and the Historical Sciences. This letter, reprinted in his Dialogues et Fragments philosophiques, in 1876, expresses Renan’s.views in a clear and simple form upon the place of science in his mind and also upon the idea of progress, as for him the two are intimately connected. Extreme confidence is expressed in the power of science. Renan at this time had written, but not published, his Avenir de la Science. In a brief manner this letter summarises much contained in the larger work. The point of view is similar. Science is to be the great reforming power.
The word “Science” is so constantly upon Renan’s lips that we can see that it has become an obsession with mm to employ it, or a device. Certainly Renan’s extensive and ill-defined usage of it conceals grave difficulties. One is tempted frequently to regard it as a synonym for philosophy or metaphysics, a word which he dislikes. That does not, however, add to clearness, and Renan’s usage of “Science” as a term confuses both science and philosophy together. Even if this were not the case, there is another important point to note— namely, that even on a stricter interpretation Renan, by his wide use of the term, actually undermines the confidence in the natural sciences. For he embraces within the term “Science” not merely those branches of investigation which we term in general the sciences of nature, but also the critical study of language, of history and literature. He expressly endeavours to show in the letter to Berthelot that true science must include the product of man’s spirit and the record of the development of that spirit.