Comte, Auguste The Positive Philosophy Vol II

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revolutionary policy on the other hand, proud of having withstood, in
France, the coalition of the old powers, discards its own maxims to
recommend the subordination of the secondary to the principal centres
by which such a noble stand has already been made, and which must
become a most valuable auxiliary of reorganization. Thus alone can the
reorganization be, in the first place, restricted to a choice population. In
brief, the revolutionary school alone has understood that the increasing
anarchy of the time, intellectual and moral, requires, to prevent a com-
plete dislocation of society, a growing concentration of political action,
properly so called.
Thus, after three centuries, employed in the necessary demolition of
the ancient regime, the critical doctrine shows itself as incapable of
other application, and as inconsistent as we have now seen it to be. It is
no more fit to secure progress, than the old doctrine to maintain Order.
But, feeble as they are apart, they actually sustain each other by their
very antagonism. It is universally understood that neither can ever again
achieve a permanent triumph: but, so strong is the apprehension of even
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the temporary preponderance of either, that the general mind, for want
of a more rational point of support, employs each doctrine in turn to
restrain the encroachments of the other. This miserable oscillation of
our social life must proceed till a real doctrine, as truly organic as pro-
gressive, shall reconcile for us the two aspects of the great political
problem. Then, at last, the two opposite doctrines will disappear for
ever in the new conception that will be seen to be completely adapted to
fulfil the destination of both. Often has each party, blinded by some
temporary success, believed that it had annihilated other; and never has
the events failed to mock the ignorant exultation. The critical doctrine
seemed to have humbled for ever the catholic-feudal school; but that
school arose again. Napoleon thought he had accomplished a retrograde
reaction; but the very energy of his efforts caused a reaction in favour of
revolutionary principles. And thus society continues to vibrate between
conflicting influences; and those influences continue to exist only by
their mutual neutralization. For that purpose only, indeed, are they now
ever applied. Neither could be spared before the advent of the state
which is to succeed them. Without the one, we should lose the sentiment
of Order, and without the other, that of Progress: and the keeping alive
this sentiment, on either hand, is the only practical efficacy which now
romaine to them. Feeble as the conception must be, in the absence of
any principle which unites the two requisites, it is preserved by the pres-
ence of the two decaying systems; and they keep before the minds of
both philosophers and the public the true conditions of social reorgani-
zation, which otherwise our feeble nature might misconceive or lose
sight of. Having the two types before us, we see the solution of the great
problem to be, to form a doctrine which shall be more organic than the
theological, and more progressive than the metaphysical.
The old political system can be no pattern for a regime suitable to a
widely different civilization; but we are not under the less obligation to
steely it, in order to learn what are the essential attributes of all social
organization, which must reappear in an improved state in the future.
The general conception of the theological and military system even seems
to me to have passed too much out of sight. And, as to the Critical
system, there can be no question of its affording, by its progressive
character, and its exposure of the preceding rename, a most valuable
stimulus to society to seek for something better than mere modifications
of systems that have failed. The common complaint that it renders all
government impossible, is a mere avowal of impotence on the part of
Positive Philosophy/137
those who utter it. Whatever are its imperfections, it fulfilled for a time
one of the two requisites: its abolition would in no way assist the re-
establishment of Order; and no declamations against the revolutionary
philosophy will affect the instinctive attachment of society to principles
w hich have dire, ted its political progress for three centuries past, and
which are believed to represent the indispensable condition, of its future
development. Each of its dogmas affords an indication of how the im-
provement is to be effected. Each expresses the political aspect of cer-
tain high moral obligations which the retrograde school, with all its
pretensions, was compelled to ignore, because its system had lost all
power to fulfil them. In this way, the dogma of Free Inquiry decides that
the spiritual reorganization must result from purely intellectual action,
providing for a final voluntary and unanimous assent, without the dis-
turbing intervention of any heterogeneous power. Again, the dogmas of
Equality and the Sovereignty of the people devolve on the new powers
and classes of society the duty of a public-spirited social conduct, in-
stead of working the many for the interests of the few. The old system
practiced these moralities in its best days; but they are now maintained
only by the revolutionary doctrine, which it would be fatal to part with
till we have some substitute in these particular respects; for the effect
would be that we should be delivered over to the dark despotism of the
old system;—to the restorers of religions, for instance, who, if proselytism
failed, would have recourse to tyranny to compel unity, if once the prin-
ciple of free inquiry were lost from among us.
It is useless to declaim analyst the critical philosophy, and to de-
plore, in the name of social order, the dissolving energy of the spirit of
analysis and inquiry. It is only by their use that we can obtain materials
for reorganization; materials which shall have been thoroughly tested
by free discussion, carried on till general conviction is secured. The
philosophy which will arise out of this satisfaction of the public reason
will then assign the rational limits which must obviate the abuse of the
analytical spirit, by establishing that distinction in social matters, be-
tween the field of reasoning and that of pure observation, which we
have found already marked out in regard to every other kind of science.
Though consigned, by the course of events, to a negative doctrine
for awhile, society has never renounced the laws of human reason: and
when the proper time arrives, society will use the rights of this reason to
organize itself anew on principles which will then have been ascertained
and estimated. The existing state of no-government seems necessary at
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present, in order to that ascertainment at principles, but it does not at all
follow, as some eccentric individuals seem to think, that the right of
inquiry imposes the duty of never deciding. The prolonged indecision [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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