As to our condition, it is improved according to the measure in which we can act upon natural phenomena, and this power in turn depends upon the knowledge we have acquired of the laws of phenomena. “Vision brings prevision and thus facilitates provision.” Progress is here manifested by the extension of our scientific knowledge and by the improvement of the arts founded upon this knowledge. If scientific knowledge, which is necessarily abstract, has to be separated from practice in order to seek for the general laws which regulate phenomena, science, once constituted, makes possible a system of reasoned applications which reaches immeasurably farther than empirical art. Like Descartes, Comte founds the most ambitious hopes upon the positive science of nature.
Now, the most “modifiable” phenomena, those in which our intervention is most efficacious, are the human phenomena, be they individual or collective. On the other hand, our action upon the external world especially depends upon the dispositions of the agent. In every way then we must improve these dispositions. The most important improvement will be that of our internal nature. It will consist in bringing about the greater and greater prevalence of the attributes which distinguish man from the animals, that is to say, intelligence and sociability, correlated faculties, which are at once as a means and as an end to one another. We know, moreover, that there are limits to this progress. The perfect preponderance within ourselves of humanity over animality is a limit, nearer to which our efforts must ever bring us, without ever actually reaching it.[272]
Whether it be a question of our condition or of our nature the improvement, in both cases, can only be very slow. It is never easy to substitute to natural order an artificial order resting upon the scientific knowledge of the former. Of those different forms of progress, the first, which Comte calls the material progress, because it is the easiest, is the most advanced. The great attraction which it has for the men of to-day is thus explained, but the importance given to it is quite exaggerated. If our nature could be brought to a higher degree of perfection it would assuredly be preferable. But it is perhaps necessary that our material conditions of existence should first have been ameliorated?
The improvement in our nature may be physical, intellectual, or moral. The first would consist in an addition to the average duration of human life; it depends upon the progress of biology, and, consequently, of medicine and hygiene. Intellectual (scientific and æsthetic) improvement, would be still more desirable. It “means a greater soaring upwards” than is represented by all physical improvements or a fortiori by any material improvements: for the intellect is a “universal tool” whose uses have a universal application. But human happiness depends far more upon moral progress “over which we have, also more command, although it is more difficult.” No intellectual improvement could be equal in value to an increase in goodness or in courage. If we were wise our whole endeavour therefore would be in this direction. At any rate we ought always to remember that other forms of progress are desirable simply as means, and moral progress alone as an end.[273]
III.
The theory of progress is the “principle” of social dynamics, itself the essential part of sociology, while sociology lies at the heart of positive philosophy. It was therefore to be expected that the adversaries of this philosophy would especially seek to ruin the theory of progress, which supports everything else. Indeed the objections have been numerous and pressing. Of these objections Comte had foreseen the two most important, and he had endeavoured to answer them beforehand. According to him, the theory of progress implies neither fatalism nor optimism, nor the quietism which has been represented as a consequence of it.[274]
On the first point, Comte draws our attention to the fact that the necessary consequence of his principle of laws is not the absolute determinism of phenomena, whether it be a question of social or other phenomena. Positive philosophy admits nothing absolute. Determinism, like free-will, is a metaphysical thesis, Comte is not compelled to take sides either with one or the other: he leaves them to mutually refute each other. The positive conception of the moral and intellectual faculties of man, as Gall clearly established, does not imply that human actions might not be otherwise than they are. Similarly, if in general natural phenomena are subject to laws, this does not prevent us from conceiving these phenomena as modifiable by man’s intervention. Now, of all natural phenomena, social phenomena are precisely the most modifiable; so much so that for a long time it was possible to ignore that they were governed by laws.
There is then no contradiction in affirming the reality of these laws, and in considering at the same time the intervention of human activity in social phenomena as efficacious. As early as 1824 Comte wrote to his friend Valat: “It would be misunderstanding my thought to conclude from it that I forbid all improvement, since, on the contrary, I formally establish that every government must change in consequence of the progress of civilisation, and that it is in no way a matter of indifference that these changes should take place by the mere force of circumstances, or by calculated planes based upon observation. I do not deny the power of political measures, I limit it.”[275]
It belongs to social science to determine the limits of the useful action of man upon social phenomena. These limits are narrow enough. Man can only modify, from the static point of view, the intensity, and from the dynamic point of view, the speed of social phenomena. Indeed, here as elsewhere, modifications can only be produced in conformity with laws. To suppose the contrary would be to deny the very existence of these laws. Now, the fundamental law of statics is the intimate solidarity and the mutual dependence of all social elements, at all the moments of their common evolution. There is, therefore, no disturbing influence, whatever its origin may be, which can “cause unsympathetic opposing elements to coexist in a given society.”[276] Rather would it destroy this society. All that is possible is to modify the respective tendencies which indeed coexist in this society, but without causing the appearance or disappearance of any of them. In the same way, from the dynamic point of view, the order of the successive phases of progress is determined by laws. No external influence (nor in particular that of man), could overturn or disturb this order, or “skip” one of the stages. The evolution could only be made more rapid, that is to say, easier. The statesman, infatuated with his power, will perhaps find this a very humble part to play. But, even within these limits, human intervention could still be of capital importance provided that it were directed by science.
History confirms these views. In it we never see social phenomena modified by man otherwise than in their intensity, or in their speed. Where we best know their evolution, that is to say, in the social series, which includes the history of the sciences, of the arts, of morals and institutions, the verification of this law is constant. For instance, among the scientific men at Alexandria astronomy stopped at a certain point, because the further development of this science was not compatible with the general conditions of society at that time. And if Montesquieu’s attempt to subject social facts to laws failed, it is because, before sociology, positive biology had first to be founded. Analogous examples abound, and a contrary case has never presented itself.