The Philosophy of Auguste Comte

by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl

But did it lay down the basis of the régime which was to succeed this one? It did not, replies Comte with Saint-Simon and de Maistre. He admires the energy of the political gifts of the Convention. Nevertheless it was wrong in believing that “critical” principles could take the place and carry out the functions of “organic” principles. So long as the struggle lasted, the critical principles had been all the more effective in that they were credited with an absolute value. Thus the dogma of boundless liberty of conscience had served to destroy the spiritual power of the catholic clergy, the dogma of the sovereignty of the people to upset the temporal government, finally the dogma of natural equality to decompose the system of social classes. But, once the old régime was abolished the error of taking these dogmas as the basis of “reorganisation” was committed.

It was not seen that they were incompatible not only with the régime which they had just destroyed, but with any social system whatever. In this way it is moral and political disorder which was upheld as the end of social perfection. For, each of the dogmas of the critical doctrine, when it is taken in an organic sense, “comes exactly to lay down as a principle that in this particular respect society must not be organised.”[313]

What becomes of government, for instance in this system? “By a direct and total supervision of the most fundamental political notions,” government is represented, the necessary enemy of society.[314] The latter must always hold it in a state of suspicion and of supervision, it must more and more restrict its modes of activity, and finally only leave it functions of general police, without its contributing in any way to the direction of the collective life and social development. In a word, with no action upon ideas, upon beliefs or feelings, the government would only have charge of the protection of interests. But is not this formally denying the very idea of government, which by definition, should on the contrary represent “the spirit of the whole,” and the “directing function” of society? Is it not giving up at the same time the great progress realised by the Middle Ages, that is to say a spiritual power independent of the temporal power? Even considering interests alone, this system only maintains order with great difficulty. It is obliged to have recourse to corruption, and it leads to continual increase in public expenditure.

The principles of critical philosophy cannot then be used as a foundation for a new social organisation. The attempt has been made and has been condemned by history. This failure could have been foretold. For, being essentially metaphysical, this philosophy implies a contradiction which necessarily renders it powerless. It tends to preserve the general bases of the old political system, whose chief conditions of existence it has however destroyed.[315] There is a very close relationship between the natural religion of philosophers and the political conceptions of the revolutionists. The latter are still connected by their deepest roots with the old order of beliefs which they have fought against with all their strength. Liberty, equality, the sovereignty of the people, the whole of the “absolute” rights which constitute the basis of the revolutionary doctrine is shielded, in the last place, by a kind of “religious although vague consecration.” The French Revolution was the work of the Deists. Comte has set apart the thinkers of the XVIII century whom he considers as his precursors, that is to say, as the anticipatory representatives of the positive spirit: Fontenelle, Hume, Montesquieu, Diderot, and d’Alembert, Turgot, Condorcet and a few others. He judges the rest of the philosophy of the century more severely. He does not spare the Encyclopédie, and in the majority of the philosophical writings of this period he finds little but “a frivolous and feeble sophistic argumentation.” Circumstances almost alone have made its success. This philosophy is incomparably inferior to that which the counter-revolution opposed to it. In the logical respect which finally predominates, says Comte, the revolutionary criticism cannot to-day resist the system of the “retrograde school.” In a regular discussion, the latter would soon have compelled it to admit that it allows the essential principles of the old régime while refusing to accept their most indispensable consequences.[316]

The inmost contradiction from which the revolutionary philosophy suffers will become more and more apparent. A not far distant moment will arrive when the effort to restore the past will include a large number of those who have contributed to its destruction. The partisans of natural religion, and even those of the most advanced Deism will rally to Catholicism as to the real foundation of the social organisation which they defend. The alternative will then be set up between the only two solutions which are logical and organic: either the old régime, with the Catholic organisation, or the new, with the positive organisation. Between these two there is no room for the critical, liberal, metaphysical, revolutionary system, which, by whatever name it may be called, signifies “no organisation at all.”

IV.

The old régime was bound to perish because in it, the social organisation was connected with a system of beliefs and of dogmas which could not withstand the spirit of investigation. In order that the new régime may escape this cause of death, must it be able without suffering to bear the indefinite exercise of an absolute freedom of examination?——No, replies Comte, there is no system capable of enduring under these conditions. But it suffices that in constituting itself, the new faith, which is the basis of social order, should have undergone the test of free examination as we see it practised in the positive sciences. It suffices that, instead of a revealed faith, we should have a demonstrated faith which will then be immovable, and which will no more have to be called in question.

Comte then admits the preliminary test, but he is opposed to free examination indefinitely renewed. This distinction allows us to reconcile some of his declarations which otherwise would appear contradictory. His language differs according as he speaks of the positive dogma in the process of formation, or of that dogma once it has been formed. When it is in process of formation the dogma is subject to criticism, and if it is not victorious in resisting it it does not become an object of belief. No matter how much we may deplore the ever-dissolving energy of the spirit of analysis and of examination, it remains beneficial none the less, by compelling, for the intellectual and moral reorganisation, the production of a philosophy capable of sustaining the decisive test of a deep discussion, “freely prolonged until the entire conviction of public reason” has taken place. This is a condition from which nothing henceforth can exempt us.[317] The spiritual reorganisation, says Comte, will be the result of purely intellectual action. It supposes a voluntary and unanimous assent at the end of complete discussion without the intervention of the spiritual powers to hasten the conclusion.

But does it follow that freedom of examination should remain indefinitely without limits? Undoubtedly it has been a good thing that men should see in this liberty an indefeasible right which they were all to enjoy. The dissolution of old beliefs in this way was easier and more rapid. The better this “singular phase” in our social development is analysed, the more will the conviction gain ground that without the conquest and use of this unlimited freedom social reorganisation could not have been prepared. But this singular phase was a transitory one. When it has been gone through, when common principles have again become universally accepted, “after sufficient verification,” the right of examination will again return within its normal and permanent limits, which consist in discussing the connection of consequences with fundamental and uniformly respected rules, but without again questioning these rules themselves.[318]

The question then reduces itself to knowing when the test may be legitimately considered as at an end. Will the individual approbation of all the members of society be required, and a kind of consecration by universal suffrage? As a matter of fact, such unanimity will perhaps never be realised. In justice it is not necessary. When we demand it we forget that Politic science is a positive science, the highest and most complicated of all. No one possesses any authority in the sciences if he is not competent. The people has no thought of making its opinion prevail in them; and, in matters of science, all who are not in a condition to understand demonstrations are the people. The convergence of intellects presupposes the voluntary and intentional renunciation on the part of the greater number of their “sovereign right of examination.”[319]