It is only at a later stage of intellectual development that the intelligence of man awakes to the apparent conflict between the anthropomorphic, and what I may call the physical,[22] aspect of nature, and either endeavours to extend the anthropomorphic view over the whole of nature—which is the tendency of theology; or to give the same exclusive predominance to the physical view—which is the tendency of science; or adopts a middle course, and taking from the anthropomorphic view its tendency to personify, and from the physical view its tendency to exclude volition and affection, ends in what M. Comte calls the "metaphysical" state—"metaphysical," in M. Comte's writings, being a general term of abuse for anything he does not like.
What is true of the individual is, mutatis mutandis, true of the intellectual development of the species. It is absurd to say of men in a state of primitive savagery, that all their conceptions are in a theological state. Nine-tenths of them are eminently realistic, and as "positive" as ignorance and narrowness can make them. It no more occurs to a savage than it does to a child, to ask the why of the daily and ordinary occurrences which form the greater part of his mental life. But in regard to the more striking, or out-of-the-way, events, which force him to speculate, he is highly anthropomorphic; and, as compared with a child, his anthropomorphism is complicated by the intense impression which the death of his own kind makes upon him, as indeed it well may. The warrior, full of ferocious energy, perhaps the despotic chief of his tribe, is suddenly struck down. A child may insult the man a moment before so awful; a fly rests, undisturbed, on the lips from which undisputed command issued. And yet the bodily aspect of the man seems hardly more altered than when he slept, and, sleeping, seemed to himself to leave his body and wander through dreamland. What then if that something, which is the essence of the man, has really been made to wander by the violence done to it, and is unable, or has forgotten, to come back to its shell? Will it not retain somewhat of the powers it possessed during life? May it not help us if it be pleased, or (as seems to be by far the more general impression) hurt us if it be angered? Will it not be well to do towards it those things which would have soothed the man and put him in good humour during his life? It is impossible to study trustworthy accounts of savage thought without seeing, that some such train of ideas as this, lies at the bottom of their speculative beliefs.
There are savages without God, in any proper sense of the word, but none without ghosts. And the Fetishism, Ancestor-worship, Hero-worship, and Demonology of primitive savages, are all, I believe, different manners of expression of their belief in ghosts, and of the anthropomorphic interpretation of out-of-the-way events, which is its concomitant. Witchcraft and sorcery are the practical expressions of these beliefs; and they stand in the same relation to religious worship as the simple anthropomorphism of children, or savages, does to theology.
In the progress of the species from savagery to advanced civilization, anthropomorphism grows into theology, while physicism (if I may so call it) develops into science; but the development of the two is contemporaneous, not successive. For each, there long exists an assured province which is not invaded by the other; while, between the two, lies a debateable land, ruled by a sort of bastards, who owe their complexion to physicism and their substance to anthropomorphism, and are M. Comte's particular aversions—metaphysical entities.
But, as the ages lengthen, the borders of Physicism increase. The territories of the bastards are all annexed to science; and even Theology, in her purer forms, has ceased to be anthropomorphic, however she may talk. Anthropomorphism has taken stand in its last fortress—man himself. But science closely invests the walls; and Philosophers gird themselves for battle upon the last and greatest of all speculative problems—Does human nature possess any free, volitional, or truly anthropomorphic element, or is it only the cunningest of all Nature's clocks? Some, among whom I count myself, think that the battle will for ever remain a drawn one, and that, for all practical purposes, this result is as good as anthropomorphism winning the day.
The classification of the sciences, which, in the eyes of M. Comte's adherents, constitutes his second great claim to the dignity of a scientific philosopher, appears to me to be open to just the same objections as the law of the three states. It is inconsistent in itself, and it is inconsistent with fact. Let us consider the main points of this classification successively:—
"Il faut distinguer par rapport à tous les ordres des phénomènes, deux genres de sciences naturelles; les unes abstraites, générales, ont pour objet la découverte des lois qui régissent les diverses classes de phénomènes, en considérant tous les cas qu'on peut concevoir; les autres concrètes, particulières, descriptives, et qu'on désigne quelquefois sous le nom des sciences naturelles proprement dites, consistent dans l'application de ces lois à l'histoire effective des différents êtres existants."[23]
The "abstract" sciences are subsequently said to be mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology, and social physics—the titles of the two latter being subsequently changed to biology and sociology. M. Comte exemplifies the distinction between his abstract and his concrete sciences as follows:—
"On pourra d'abord l'apercevoir très-nettement en comparant, d'une part, la physiologie générale, et d'une autre part la zoologie et la botanique proprement dites. Ce sont évidemment, en effet, deux travaux d'un caractère fort distinct, que d'étudier, en général, les lois de la vie, ou de déterminer le mode d'existence de chaque corps vivant, en particulier. Cette seconde étude, en outre, est nécessairememt fondée sur la première."—P. 57.
All the unreality and mere bookishness of M. Comte's knowledge of physical science comes out in the passage I have italicised. "The special study of living beings is based upon a general study of the laws of life!" What little I know about the matter leads me to think, that, if M. Comte had possessed the slightest practical acquaintance with biological science, he would have turned his phraseology upside down, and have perceived that we can have no knowledge of the general laws of life, except that which is based upon the study of particular living beings.