[CHAPTER II]
SOCIAL ETHICS
“Live for others”: such is the supreme formula of positive ethics. Feeling bears witness to its justice; science discloses its far-reaching importance and its deep consequences. But this formula is not only applied in a general way to the natural society formed by men among themselves, a society in which Comte even includes animals capable of affection and of devotion, whose services deserve our gratitude. The moral law finds a precise application in the definite relations established among men by civic society, that is to say in the rights and in the mutual duties of individuals. If it be true that ethics and politics are distinct from each other, politics is none the less closely subordinated to ethics. The spiritual power does not govern; however it directs those who govern as well as those who are governed. It is this power which gives to all the sum of common beliefs and feelings which enable Society to live. Thus to ethics belongs the task of determining the principles according to which positive politics will regulate the relations between men.
Now, as a matter of fact, these relations are in a very unsettled condition to-day. Public order is unstable, revolutions are frequent, suffering is excessive. Are we to lay the blame upon public institutions? They are rather an effect than a cause. In order to understand the present condition it is necessary to grasp the law of the general evolution of humanity, and in particular that of European Society. It then becomes apparent that the actual disturbances proceed from the great conflict inaugurated by the French revolution. This conflict is still going on. The old régime has not yet quite disappeared, and the régime which is to take its place is not yet organised. The struggle is prolonged between the theologico-metaphysical spirit and the positive spirit, between revealed belief which is becoming weaker and demonstrated belief which is being formed, and finally between the old economic landmarks and an industrial activity whose laws have not yet been discovered.
The relations between masters and workmen are at the present time “anarchical.” The advance of industry, as it grows, oppresses the majority of those whose co-operation in it is indispensable. And the ever more strongly marked division between “brains and hands” is far more due to the political incapacity, the social thoughtlessness, and especially to the blind selfishness of the masters than to the inordinate demands of the workmen.[333] The capitalists have not dreamt of organising a liberal education for the people to defend it against the seductions of the revolutionary propaganda. They seem to fear that the people should receive instruction. As far as they can, they take the place of the ancient chiefs whose social rank they covet. But they do not inherit their generosity. They do not understand that “noblesse oblige.” In this way the great masters of industry too often tend to utilise their political influence to the detriment of the public, to appropriate important monopolies and to take the advantage of the power of capital to make the claims of the masters predominate over those of the workers, without any regard for equity, since the right of coalition which is allowed to the former is refused to the latter.
Comte saw the bourgeoisie at work during Louis-Philippe’s reign, and he passes severe judgment upon it. Its political conceptions, he says, refer not to the aim and exercise of power, but especially to its possession. It regards the revolution as terminated by the establishment of the parliamentary régime, whereas this is only an “equivocal halting place.” A complete social reorganisation is not less feared by this middle class than by the old upper classes. Although filled with the critical spirit of the XVIII. century, even under a Republican form it would prolong a system of theological hypocrisy, by means of which the respectful submission of the masses is insured, while no strict duty is imposed upon the leaders.[334] This is hard upon the proletariat, whose condition is far from improving. It “establishes dungeons for those who ask for bread.”[335] It believes that these millions of men will be able to remain indefinitely “encamped” in modern society without being properly settled in it with definite and respected rights.[336] The capital which it holds in its hands, after having been an instrument of emancipation, has become one of oppression. It is thus that, by a paradox difficult to uphold, the invention of machinery, which a priori, one would be led to believe, would soften the condition of the proletariat, has, on the contrary, been a new cause of suffering to them, and has made their lot a doubly hard one.[337]
Here, in brief, we have a formidable indictment against the middle classes, and in particular against the political economy which has nourished them. Comte has in view sometimes the classical economists of the end of the XVIII. century, sometimes their orthodox successors in the XIX. Those of the XVIII. he regards as having collaborated in the great revolutionary work. They took part in the diffusion of critical doctrines and of negative philosophy. In this capacity they have, no doubt, rendered certain services. They contributed to the decomposition of the old régime. Political economy had succeeded in convincing the governments themselves of their unfitness to direct the commercial and industrial movement.[338]
The affinities between the philosophers and the economists of the XVIII. century are evident enough: is it necessary to recall the spirit of “individualism” of the economists, and their characteristic tendency to restrict the functions of government as much as possible? Despite the efforts of a great number among them, conservatives by temperament or by political tendencies, the logical consequences of their principles were bound to come to light. Thus “the superfluity of all regular moral teaching, the suppression of all official encouragement of science and the fine arts; even the recent attacks against the fundamental institution of property find their origin in economical metaphysics.” It was with this doctrine as with the other parts of negative philosophy; after having accomplished its work of destruction, it sought to transform its critical principles into organic ones, without realising that this amounted to repudiating beforehand any positive organisation.
The famous formula, “Laissez faire, laissez passer,” is no more a real principle in political economy than liberty itself is one in politics properly so-called. Comte vigorously opposes the dogma of non-intervention. Because in some particular and secondary cases political economy has ascertained “the natural tendencies of societies in the direction of a certain necessary order, it concluded from this that any special institution is useless.” But this order is extremely imperfect. The knowledge of sociological laws will give us the power of improving it, as we already do in the case of medicine and surgery. Merely to admit the degree of order which is spontaneously established in practice is equivalent to “a solemn dismissal in the case of every difficulty which arises.” Look at the social crisis brought about by the development of machinery. In reply to the just and urgent claims of the workmen suddenly deprived of their means of livelihood, and unable in a day to find another, our economists can only repeat, “with merciless pedantry,” their barren aphorism about absolute industrial liberty. To all complaints they dare to answer that it is a question of time! And this to men who require food to-day! “Such a theory proclaims its own social impotence.”[339]
And so neither is political economy a science yet, nor, so far, are economists men of science. Originally being nearly all barristers or men of letters, they were strangers to the idea of scientific observation, to the precise notion of a natural law, and finally to the sense of what constitutes a demonstration. If we make an exception of Adam Smith and of a few others, how could they apply the positive method which they did not know to the most difficult cases of analysis? Destutt de Tracy placed political economy between logic and ethics. And this was not without reason: for it is nearer to metaphysics than to positive science. In it, work preserves its personal character, schools contend with each other, the discussions as to the elementary notions of value, of utility, etc., savour of scholasticism. The very idea of studying economical phenomena separately is not scientific, since the various “social series” are interdependent, and since in sociology more particular laws depend upon more general laws.[340] There is no scientific study of economical facts unless we first look at them from the sociological point of view. We can no more isolate the laws which regulate the material existence of societies than we can describe man as an essentially calculating being, only actuated by the motive of personal interest.
The same objections naturally hold good against the adversaries of the economists, since, in general, socialists and communists have confined themselves to an analogous conception of their science. However, while criticising them, Comte recognises the fact that they have established some truths. Everything they say is not false. Thus, they justly claim the right for the government to intervene in economical relations. And, if it be absurd to wish to abolish private property, as certain sects demanded, it is very true that property is of a social nature, and that it is necessary to regulate it.[341] To endow it with an absolute character is, says Comte, an “anti-social” theory. No property can be created, nor even transmitted, by its mere possessor without the concurrence of society. Thus always and everywhere the community has intervened in the exercise of the right of property. The tax makes the public a partner in every private fortune.