The most interesting and powerful of the early socialist philosophers is undoubtedly Proudhon (1809- 1865), a striking personality, much misunderstood.

While Saint-Simon, a count, came from the aristocracy, Fourier from the bourgeoisie, Proudhon was a real son of the people, a mouthpiece of the proletariat. He was a man of admirable mental energy and learning, which he had obtained solely by his own efforts and by a struggle with poverty and misery. Earnest and passionate by nature, he yet formulated his doctrines with more sanity and moderation than is usually supposed. Labels of “atheist” and “anarchist” have served well to misrepresent him. Certainly two of his watchwords were likely enough to raise hostility in many quarters. “God,” he said, “is evil,” “Property is theft.” This last maxim was the subject of his book, published in 1840, Qu’est-ce que la propriété? (ou, Recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement) to which his answer was “C’est le vol!” Proudhon took up the great watchword of Egalité, and had a passion for social justice which he based on “the right to the whole product of labour.” This could only come by mutual exchange, fairly and freely. He distinguished between private “property” and individual “possession.” The latter is an admitted fact and is not to be abolished; what he is anxious to overthrow is private “property,” which is a toll upon the labour of others and is therefore ultimately and morally theft. He hated the State for its support of the “thieves,” and his doctrines are a philosophy of anarchy. He further enunciated them in Système des Contradictions économiques (1846) and De la Justice (1858). In 1848 he was elected a député and, together with Louis Blanc and Pierre Leroux, figured in the Revolution of 1848. Blanc was a man of action, who had a concrete scheme for transition from the capitalist régime to the socialist state. He believed in the organisation of labour, universal suffrage and a new distribution of wealth, but he disapproved strongly of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of violent revolution. Proudhon expressed his great admiration for Blanc.

The work of both of these men is a contradiction to the assertion put forward by the Marxian school that socialist doctrine was merely sentimental, utopian and “unscientific” prior to Marx. Many of the views of Proudhon and Blanc were far more “scientific” than those of Marx, because they were closer to facts. Proudhon differed profoundly from Marx in his view of history in which he saw the influence of ideas and ideals, as well as the operation of purely economic factors. To the doctrine of a materialistic determination of history Proudhon rightly opposes that of a spiritual determination, by the thoughts and ideals of men.[[7]] The true revolution Proudhon and Blanc maintained can come only through the power of ideas.

[7] Indeed, it is highly probable that with the growing dissatisfaction with Marxian theories the work of Proudhon will come into greater prominence, replacing largely that of Marx.
On the personal relations of Proudhon with Marx (1818-1883), who was nine years younger than the Frenchman, see the interesting volume by Marx’s descendant, M. Jean Longuet (Député de la Seine), La Politique internationale du Marxisme (Karl Marx et la France) (Alcan).
On the debt of Marx to the French social thinkers see the account given by Professor Charles Andler in his special edition of the Communist Manifesto, Le Manifeste Communiste (avec introduction historique et commentaire), (Rieder), also the last section of Renouvier’s Philosophie analytique de l’Histoire, vol. iv.

All these early socialist thinkers had this in common: they agreed that purely economic solutions would not soothe the ills of society, but that moral, religious and philosophic teaching must accompany, or rather precede, all efforts towards social reform. The earliest of them, Saint-Simon, had asserted that no society, no system of civilisation, can endure if its spiritual principles and its economic organisation are in direct contradiction. When brotherly love on the one hand and merciless competition on the other are equally extolled, then hypocrisy, unrest and conflict are inevitable.

IV

The rise of positivism ranks with the rise of socialism as a movement of primary importance. Both were in origin nearer to one another than they now appear to be. We have seen how Saint-Simon was imbued with a spirit of social reform, a desire to reorganise human society. This desire Auguste Comte (1798-1857) shared; he felt himself called to it as a sacred work, and he extolled his “incomparable mission.” He lamented the anarchical state of the world and contrasted it with the world of the ancients and that of the Middle Ages. The harmony and stability of mediaeval society were due, Comte urged, to the spiritual power and unity of the Catholic Church and faith. The liberty of the Reformation offers no real basis for society, it is the spirit of criticism and of revolution. The modern world needs a new spiritual power. Such was Comte’s judgment upon the world of his time. Where in the modern world could such a new organising power be found? To this question Comte gave an answer similar to that of Saint-Simon: he turned to science. The influence of Saint-Simon is here apparent, and we must note the personal relations between the two men. In 1817 Comte became secretary to Saint-Simon, and became intimately associated with his ideas and his work. Comte recognised, with his master, the supreme importance of establishing, at the outset, the relations actually obtaining and the relations possible between science and political organisation. This led to the publication, in 1822, of a treatise, Plan des Travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour réorganiser la Société, which unfortunately led to a quarrel between the two friends, and finally, in 1824, to a definite rupture by which Comte seems to have been embittered and made rather hostile to his old master and to have assumed an ungenerous attitude.[[8]] Comte, however, being a proud and ambitious spirit, was perhaps better left alone to hew out his own path. In him we have one of the greatest minds of modern France, and his doctrine of positivism is one of the dominating features of the first half of the century.

[8] In considering the relations between Saint-Simon and Comte we may usefully compare those between Schelling and Hegel in Germany.

His break with Saint-Simon showed his own resources; he had undoubtedly a finer sense of the difficulties of his reforming task than had Saint-Simon; moreover, he possessed a scientific knowledge which his master lacked. Such equipment he needed in his ambitious task, and it is one of the chief merits of Comte that he attempted so large a project as the Positive Philosophy endeavoured to be.

This philosophy was contained in his Cours de Philosophie positive (1830-1842), which he regarded as the theoretic basis of a reforming political philosophy. One of the most interesting aspects of this work, however, is its claim to be a positive philosophy. Had not Comte accepted the Saint-Simonist doctrine of a belief in science as the great future power in society? How then comes it that he gives us a “philosophie positive” in the first place and not, as we might expect, a “science positive”? Comte’s answer to this is that science, no less than society itself, is disordered and stands in need of organisation. The sciences have proceeded to work in a piecemeal fashion and are unable to present us with une vue d’ensemble. It is the rôle of philosophy to work upon the data presented by the various sciences and, without going beyond these data, to arrange them and give us an organic unity of thought, a synthesis, which shall produce order in the mind of man and subsequently in human society.