But at least humanity, after so many efforts, once elevated to this glorious state, will henceforth remain in it? M. Comte thinks not; he inclines, on the contrary, to the belief that in spite of the positivist virtue, humanity will end by decreasing and entirely disappearing.
But we have detained our readers long enough with these sad lucubrations of a sickly brain. We could not well pass them over in silence, for they belong to the intellectual history of our times, and it seems to us some useful lessons may be extracted from them.
We have promised to make known [{732}] the philosophical theory of M. H. Taine, but as the matter is small, the exposition may be short. His theory may be reduced to the three following points:
1. The philosopher in the study of science must be disinterested, and draw his conclusions after having made his observations, without disturbing himself as to their consequences. The philosopher, in a word, must set the man aside, forget that he is a son, a father, a husband, a citizen, and regard science alone, nothing but science, with the facts observation furnishes.
2. Observation is the only method, and observation must be confined exclusively to physical phenomena, which alone are real. Metaphysical beings, notions of the soul, of first cause, are pure illusions; consequently nothing survives the body, and there is no God, at least no God that can be inferred from any observable phenomena.
3. The highest synthesis to which observation can conduce is that there is a vast assemblage of laws and phenomena which we call nature.
All this resembles positivism too closely to be separated from it. If we have distinguished it, we have done so that M. H. Taine should not accuse us of making him, in spite of himself, the disciple of a master whom, perhaps, he does not wish to own.
III.
Before proceeding to examine this strange and incoherent system either in its general principles or in its particular application, we must reduce to their first value the two propositions which we set forth as its preamble, or rather as its pretext: 1. That modern society is in want of a doctrine that unites all intelligences in a common symbol, and enables them to live in peace and harmony; and, 2. That this doctrine cannot be in the future the Catholic doctrine, though that doctrine for a long time in the past filled its office, for its dogmas are now known to be irreconcilable with the discoveries of science.
One of the most common practices of the sophistical spirit is not so much to deny facts as to distort them, exaggerate their reach, or confuse those which are distinct. This is what our positivists do in these propositions. That there is at present much intellectual anarchy, that many souls, having lost their faith, or suffered it to be greatly weakened, refuse to recognize any law except the law which they make for themselves, and that thence results a mental perturbation from which society suffers not a little, is a fact too evident and too lamentable to be questioned. It is only simple justice, however, to acknowledge that M. Comte has the merit of pointing it out much earlier than the most of his friends [and Saint-Simon much earlier than even M. Comte.—TR.] Although strongly imbued with the revolutionary spirit he comprehended [had learned from Saint-Simon?—TR.] as early as 1822 that that spirit, powerful indeed to destroy, is radically incapable of establishing anything, and he never spared the illusion of those who believed that the principles of the Constituent Assembly of 1789, engrafted on religious unbelief, could serve as the basis of the social edifice.