The words “belief” and “faith” must not be misunderstood. In the “reorganisation of beliefs” which he undertakes, Comte only concerns himself with beliefs capable of demonstration. He is here faithful to the thought of Saint Simon, who understood “religion” chiefly as a basis of political organisation. At any rate, in the early part of his philosophical career Comte does not bring into “faith” the mystical, sentimental and non-intellectual elements which this word usually implies and which so often oppose it to “reason.” The word signifies for Comte that which man believes concerning what may be for him a subject of knowledge. Until now these beliefs have set forth a more or less mythical or metaphysical explanation of the universe and of man, taught by priests and philosophers. But this no longer satisfies the human mind. By degrees positive science, which works on a totally different plan, substitutes a knowledge of the laws of phenomena to those “explanations.” From this moment the problem thus presents itself to Comte: To establish by rational means a system of universally accepted truths concerning man, society and the world.
Comte thus takes for granted: 1st, that the “opinions,” the “beliefs” and the “conceptions” relating to these matters, are to-day “anarchical”: 2nd, that their natural and normal condition is to be “organised.”
There is no need to prove the first part; a glance at contemporary society is enough. The confused disturbing movements which fill it with trouble and agitation, and which, unless rational harmony be at last established, threaten its destruction are not due merely to political causes. They proceed from moral disorder. And this in turn proceeds from intellectual disorder, that is to say from a lack of principles common to all minds, and from the absence of universally admitted conceptions and beliefs. For in order that a human society may subsist, a certain harmony of sentiment or even common interests among its members will not suffice. Above all things, intellectual concord which finds expression in a body of common beliefs is necessary.
If, therefore, a society be a prey to chronic disorders, which political remedies appear powerless to cure, one has every right to believe that the deep-rooted evil has its origin in intellectual disorganisation. All other troubles are merely symptoms. This, according to Comte, is precisely the state of contemporary society. It has neither “intellectual” nor “spiritual” government, and does not even feel the want of it. The minds of men recognise no common discipline. Not a principle subsists which negative and “corrosive” criticism has not attacked. The individual erects himself as a judge of all things—philosophy, ethics, politics, religion. The opinion which he adopts most frequently without any special qualification for so doing, and according to his passions, always appears to him to have as much right to be admitted as those of other men. He claims to be amenable to no one for his thoughts. And this scattering (later on Comte will say insurrection) of intelligences is what he calls a state of anarchy.
But, we may say, does not this state represent the ordinary condition of human societies? Perhaps the “organic” state only appears occasionally and as an exception? Such a supposition is groundless. For, if such were the case societies could not subsist, and above all could not develop. We must admit, on the contrary, that periods of intellectual anarchy form the exception, and that in a normal state of society men are united by their unanimous submission to a sufficiently large body of principles and beliefs. History confirms this view. The immobility of civilisation in the Far-East is especially due to the intellectual stability which distinguishes it from our own condition. The societies of Antiquity (Grecian and Roman), rested upon a conception of man, of citizenship and of the world, which, as a matter of fact, scarcely varied during the whole period of their existence. Lastly, in the Middle-ages, Christianity had constituted an admirable spiritual authority. The organisation of Catholicism, “a masterpiece of political sagacity,” had established a body of beliefs which all minds accepted with complacent docility. It is the decomposition of this great system which has produced the majority of the evils with which we are now struggling. Mental anarchy is therefore truly an abnormal state, a pathological fact, what Comte will call later on the “western disease,” a mortal disease if it is to be prolonged. Either modern society must perish, or minds must regain their stable equilibrium by submission to common principles.
The problem of the organisation of beliefs would seem to come under two heads. In the first place we have the philosophical problem: how to establish a system of principles and beliefs capable of being universally admitted; and, in the second place, a social problem: how to bring all minds into the new faith. But this distinction only appears on the surface. As a matter of fact, the solution of the first problem will necessarily imply that of the second. Does not the principal cause for the lack of common discipline lie in the disorder which troubles the mind of each individual? If intellects are divided among themselves it is because each intellect is divided against itself. Let one of them succeed in establishing a perfect harmony within itself, and by the mere force of logic, this harmony, by gradual diffusion will be communicated to the others—once true philosophy is established, the rest will only be a matter of time. It will therefore suffice to examine the opinions and beliefs which actually exist in one mind, and to inquire into the conditions necessary to substitute in it harmony to anarchy, or in a word, to realise within it a perfect logical coherence.
As Descartes, in order to test all his knowledge, had only to examine the sources from which it originated, so Comte, in order to verify the logical compatibility of his opinions, will content himself with the consideration of the methods which have furnished him with them. If he discovers methods which mutually tend to exclude each other, he will have found the cause of the mental disorder which gives birth to all the evils we see troubling modern society. At the same time he will have discovered the remedy which will bring about the disappearance of those contradictions. The human mind is so constituted, that the first thing it requires is unity. Understanding is spontaneously systematic. Opinions merely in juxtaposition in the mind but logically irreconcilable cannot satisfy it. As a matter of fact, the contradiction, even when it is ignored, nevertheless impresses itself. Whether we know it or not, each of our opinions implies a complexus of connected opinions all arrived at by the same method as the one in question; and this complexus is itself part of the more considerable whole which finally completes itself in a comprehensive conception of the world given in experience.
Now Comte saw in himself, as in his contemporaries, two general methods, two “modes of thought” which cannot coexist without contradiction, although neither one nor the other has obtained a full mastery up to the present time. Concerning several categories of phenomena he thinks as a scholar trained in the school of Hobbes, of Galileo, of Descartes and of their successors. He does not seek to explain them by causes. When, by means of observation or deduction, he has arrived at a knowledge of their laws he remains satisfied. For the knowledge of these laws allows him in certain cases to intervene in the phenomena, and to substitute to the natural order an artificial order better suited to his requirements. It is thus that mechanical, astronomical, physical, chemical and even biological phenomena are objects of relative and positive science for him to-day.
But, as soon as the question is one of facts which originate in the human conscience, or which are connected with social life and with history, an opposite tendency becomes predominant. Instead of solely seeking for the laws of phenomena, our mind desires to explain them. It wants to find the essence and the cause. It speculates upon the human soul, upon the relation of that soul to the other realities of the universe, upon the end which society should have in view, upon the best possible government, upon the social contract, etc. All these questions arise from the “metaphysical” mode of thought, and this mode is formally incompatible with the preceding one. Yet we see both of them subsisting in our minds to-day.
Social dynamics will show how this condition must have been produced. But whatever the historical reasons may be, the reality is only too evident. The human mind to-day can neither adhere entirely to nor give up entirely one or the other of these two modes of thought. Undoubtedly it feels that the conquests of positive science are “irrevocable.” For example, how could it return to a metaphysical or theological explanation of astronomical or physical phenomena? But, on the other hand, metaphysical and theological conceptions seem to it no less indispensable. It does not believe it could do without them. And this is natural. For, to satisfy the desire for unity, which is its supreme requirement, the human mind demands a conception of the whole which embraces all the orders of phenomena, what Kant called a totalizing of experience, in a word a “philosophy.”