The Philosophy of Auguste Comte

by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl

What he formally rejects, is the finality understood in the theological or metaphysical manner: Cœli enarrant gloriam Dei. He does not admit that we can “explain” the natural order by a supernatural wisdom. But he in no way contests the finality which Kant called internal. This finality, or better, this reciprocal causality appears in living beings, where the whole and the parts are reciprocally end and means. The tree could not subsist without the leaves any more than the leaves without the tree. Comte expresses this idea in terms which are almost identical with those of Kant, although he did not know them. “We shall,” he says, “cease defining a living being by the collection of its organs, as if these could exist isolated.... In biology the general notion of the being, always precedes that of any of its parts whatever. In sociology, where partial interdependence is less intimate although wider, it would be a serious heresy to define humanity by man ... a fortiori in biology we ought not to conceive the whole from its parts.”[61] As soon as we rise above the inorganic world, the first condition for the study of phenomena is the idea of their consensus, first in biology, and then in sociology. This consensus corresponds to Kant’s internal finality.

But the distinction between internal finality and external finality cannot be strictly maintained. We will never affirm that some beings were made in view of others. This would be in the highest degree a theological “explanation” of the first order. But from the positive point of view, we observe that, in order to subsist, organisms need not only special intimate structure, but further require a certain equilibrium of external conditions. At each moment their existence depends at once on their constitution and on the “milieu.” This word, which was destined to attain such popularity and the theory of the “milieu” which Taine has rendered no less popular, belong to Comte. Undoubtedly, the idea was suggested to him, on the one hand by Montesquieu and by his successors, and on the other by the labours of Lamarck and of the contemporary biologists. He also drew inspiration from Bichat’s celebrated Recherches sur la vie et la mort. But Bichat especially insisted upon the antagonism between the living being and the forces of the inorganic world which press upon him from all sides. Comte thinks, on the contrary, that the very existence of living beings is the proof of a sufficient harmony between their organism and the milieu. And what we cannot dispute is his merit in having generalised the idea specially applied by Montesquieu to social facts, and also specially applied by Lamarck and Bichat to the phenomena of life.

“I designate by this word “milieu,” says Comte, in excusing himself for the new meaning which he gives it, “not only the fluid in which the organism is immersed, but, in general, the totality of external circumstances of any kind whatever necessary to the existence of each determined organism.”[62]

Properly speaking then, Comte does not reject the doctrine of final causes; he only transforms it. He had declared this himself in his opuscule in 1822. “The doctrine of final causes has been converted by the physiologists into the principle of the conditions of existence.” Positive philosophy appropriates, “with the understanding of a suitable change,” the general ideas primitively invented by the theological and metaphysical philosophies. As the positive notion of the mathematical laws of phenomena arose out of the metaphysical conceptions of the Pythagoricians concerning the properties of numbers, so the scientific principle of the conditions of existence springs from the hypothesis of final causes.[63]

An example will allow us to realise this transformation in the act.

The stability of the solar system renders the existence of living species on the earth possible. A good example of finality it would seem. Nevertheless this stability is simply a necessary consequence, according to the mechanical laws of the world, of some circumstances characteristic of our system: extreme smallness of the planetary masses in comparison to the central mass, small eccentricity of their orbits, slight mutual inclination of their planes, etc. Since, in fact, we exist it must be that the system of which we form a part is arranged so as to allow of this existence.” The so-called final cause would then reduce itself here, as on all analogous occasions, to this childish remark: the only stars inhabited are those which are habitable. In a word, we return to the principle of the conditions of existence, which is the true positive transformation of the doctrine of final causes, and whose bearings and fertility are far superior.”[64]

In order to give the formula of this principle, we must have recourse to the general distinction established by de Blainville between the static point of view and the dynamic point of view.

Every active being, and in particular every living being, can be analysed from these two points of view. The static analysis considers its elements in their relations of simultaneous connexions. The dynamic analysis discovers the laws of their joint evolution. The first is the share of the anatomist, the second that of the physiologist. Now it is clear that these two analyses are complementary to one another, and are even separately unintelligible. For instance, the anatomist is constantly guided by physiological considerations. Conversely, without anatomical knowledge there is no positive physiology.

Thus, the statical analysis establishes the laws of coexistence, the dynamic analysis the laws of succession or of movement. The principle of the conditions of existence is nothing else than the direct and general conception of the necessary harmony of these two analyses, that is to say, of the agreement of these two orders of laws.[65] If this harmony, in fact, was not realised, no living being, no natural system of phenomena could subsist. From the point of view of the object this principle accounts for the permanence of beings: from the point of view of the subject it expresses the possibility of science.

Why does Comte say that the importance and fertility of this principle are far superior to those of the doctrine of final causes? It is because this latter doctrine claims to “explain.” In referring the natural order to the wisdom of a Providence, it dispenses in some measure with scientific research, or at least it does not require it. The principle of the conditions of existence, on the contrary, is closely allied to the positive conception of natural phenomena. It only implies the existence of laws. It only establishes the continuity of the relations between these laws, a continuity verified by experience, since beings subsist and reproduce themselves. In a word, it allows us to connect the laws of succession with the laws of coexistence everywhere. Now, to connect is the essential function of science. By means of this principle not only the successive moments of any natural evolution whatever are understood as having solidarity with each other but the whole of this evolution becomes intelligible by its relation to the statical conditions to which it corresponds. And, in virtue of the relativity of science, or, if we prefer it, of the universal reciprocal action of all phenomena, the principle of the conditions of existence leads the human mind to a scientific investigation ever more exact and never completed.