A system of "Catholicism minus Christianity" was therefore completely organized in Comte's mind, four years before the first volume of the "Philosophie Positive" was written; and, naturally, the papal spirit shows itself in that work, not only in the ways I have already mentioned, but, notably, in the attack on liberty of conscience which breaks out in the fourth volume:—
"Il n'y a point de liberté de conscience en astronomie, en physique, en chimie, en physiologie même, en ce sens que chacun trouverait absurde de ne pas croire de confiance aux principes établis dans les sciences par les hommes compétents."
"Nothing in ultramontane Catholicism" can, in my judgment, be more completely sacerdotal, more entirely anti-scientific, than this dictum. All the great steps in the advancement of science have been made by just those men who have not hesitated to doubt the "principles established in the sciences by competent persons;" and the great teaching of science—the great use of it as an instrument of mental discipline—is its constant inculcation of the maxim, that the sole ground on which any statement has a right to be believed is the impossibility of refuting it.
Thus, without travelling beyond the limits of the "Philosophie Positive," we find its author contemplating the establishment of a system of society, in which an organized spiritual power shall over-ride and direct the temporal power, as completely as the Innocents and Gregorys tried to govern Europe in the middle ages; and repudiating the exercise of liberty of conscience against the "hommes compétents", of whom, by the assumption, the new priesthood would be composed. Was Mr. Congreve as forgetful of this, as he seems to have been of some other parts of the "Philosophie Positive," when he wrote, that "in any limited, careful use of the term, no candid man could say that the Positive Philosophy contained a great deal as thoroughly antagonistic to [the very essence of[28]] science as Catholicism"?
M. Comte, it will have been observed, desires to retain the whole of Catholic organization; and the logical practical result of this part of his doctrine would be the establishment of something corresponding with that eminently Catholic, but admittedly anti-scientific, institution—the Holy Office.
I hope I have said enough to show that I wrote the few lines I devoted to M. Comte and his philosophy, neither unguardedly, nor ignorantly, still less maliciously. I shall be sorry if what I have now added, in my own justification, should lead any to suppose that I think M. Comte's works worthless; or that I do not heartily respect, and sympathise with, those who have been impelled by him to think deeply upon social problems, and to strive nobly for social regeneration. It is the virtue of that impulse, I believe, which will save the name and fame of Auguste Comte from oblivion. As for his philosophy, I part with it by quoting his own words, reported to me by a quondam Comtist, now an eminent member of the Institute of France, M. Charles Robin:—
"La Philosophie est une tentative incessante de l'esprit humain pour arriver au repos: mais elle se trouve incessamment aussi dérangée par les progrès continus de la science. De là vient pour le philosophe l'obligation de refaire chaque soir la synthèse de ses conceptions; et un jour viendra où l'homme raisonnable ne fera plus d'autre prière du soir."
FOOTNOTES:
[13] I am glad to observe that Mr. Congreve, in the criticism with which he has favoured me in the number of the Fortnightly Review for April 1869, does not venture to challenge the justice of the claim I make for Hume. He merely suggests that I have been wanting in candour in not mentioning Comte's high opinion of Hume. After mature reflection I am unable to discern my fault. If I had suggested that Comte had borrowed from Hume without acknowledgment; or if, instead of trying to express my own sense of Hume's merits with the modesty which becomes a writer who has no authority in matters of philosophy, I had affirmed that no one had properly appreciated him, Mr. Congreve's remarks would apply: but as I did neither of these things, they appear to me to be irrelevant, if not unjustifiable. And even had it occurred to me to quote M. Comte's expressions about Hume, I do not know that I should have cited them, inasmuch as, on his own showing, M. Comte occasionally speaks very decidedly touching writers of whose works he has not read a line. Thus, in Tome VI. of the "Philosophie Positive," p. 619, M. Comte writes: "Le plus grand des métaphysiciens modernes, l'illustre Kant, a noblement mérité une éternelle admiration en tentant, le premier, d'échapper directement a l'absolu philosophique par sa célèbre conception de la double réalité, à la fois objective et subjective, qui indique un si juste sentiment de la saine philosophie."
But in the "Préface Personnelle" in the same volume, p. 35, M. Comte tells us:—"Je n'ai jamais lu, en aucune langue, ni Vico, ni Kant, ni Herder, ni Hegel, &c.; je ne connais leurs divers ouvrages que d'après quelques relations indirectes et certains extraits fort insuffisants."