IV.

The old régime was bound to perish because in it, the social organisation was connected with a system of beliefs and of dogmas which could not withstand the spirit of investigation. In order that the new régime may escape this cause of death, must it be able without suffering to bear the indefinite exercise of an absolute freedom of examination?——No, replies Comte, there is no system capable of enduring under these conditions. But it suffices that in constituting itself, the new faith, which is the basis of social order, should have undergone the test of free examination as we see it practised in the positive sciences. It suffices that, instead of a revealed faith, we should have a demonstrated faith which will then be immovable, and which will no more have to be called in question.

Comte then admits the preliminary test, but he is opposed to free examination indefinitely renewed. This distinction allows us to reconcile some of his declarations which otherwise would appear contradictory. His language differs according as he speaks of the positive dogma in the process of formation, or of that dogma once it has been formed. When it is in process of formation the dogma is subject to criticism, and if it is not victorious in resisting it it does not become an object of belief. No matter how much we may deplore the ever-dissolving energy of the spirit of analysis and of examination, it remains beneficial none the less, by compelling, for the intellectual and moral reorganisation, the production of a philosophy capable of sustaining the decisive test of a deep discussion, “freely prolonged until the entire conviction of public reason” has taken place. This is a condition from which nothing henceforth can exempt us.[317] The spiritual reorganisation, says Comte, will be the result of purely intellectual action. It supposes a voluntary and unanimous assent at the end of complete discussion without the intervention of the spiritual powers to hasten the conclusion.

But does it follow that freedom of examination should _remain_ indefinitely without limits? Undoubtedly it has been a good thing that men should see in this liberty an indefeasible right which they were all to enjoy. The dissolution of old beliefs in this way was easier and more rapid. The better this “singular phase” in our social development is analysed, the more will the conviction gain ground that without the conquest and use of this unlimited freedom social reorganisation could not have been prepared. But this singular phase was a transitory one. When it has been gone through, when common principles have again become universally accepted, “after sufficient verification,” the right of examination will again return within its normal and permanent limits, which consist in discussing the connection of consequences with fundamental and uniformly respected rules, but without again questioning these rules themselves.[318]

The question then reduces itself to knowing when the test may be legitimately considered as at an end. Will the individual approbation of all the members of society be required, and a kind of consecration by universal suffrage? As a matter of fact, such unanimity will perhaps never be realised. In justice it is not necessary. When we demand it we forget that Politic science is a positive science, the highest and most complicated of all. No one possesses any authority in the sciences if he is not competent. The people has no thought of making its opinion prevail in them; and, in matters of science, all who are not in a condition to understand demonstrations are the people. The convergence of intellects presupposes the voluntary and intentional renunciation on the part of the greater number of their “sovereign right of examination.”[319]

In this way the right is taken from no one. The use of it is simply intrusted by those who are incompetent to the competent ones. This intrusting, freely accepted by all, lasts as long as the conditions which made it necessary. No moral order could be compatible with the “wandering liberty of minds at the present time,” if it were to persist indefinitely. It is not possible that any man, whether he be competent or not, should every day call into discussion the very bases of society. “Systematic tolerance cannot exist, and has never really existed, except on the subject of opinions which are regarded as indifferent or as doubtful.”[320]

Such is the meaning of the celebrated passages on liberty of conscience with which Comte has so often been reproached. He had written it in 1822, and quoted it himself in the fourth volume of the _Cours de philosophie positive_,[321] never suspecting that anything could be said against it. “There is no liberty of conscience in astronomy, in physics, in chemistry, in physiology, in the sense that everyone would deem it absurd not to take on trust the principles established in these sciences by competent men. If it is otherwise in politics, it is because the old principles have fallen, and, as the new ones are not yet formed, there are, properly speaking, in this interval no established principles.” It is then in no way a question of imposing beliefs upon men of which they are not to judge, by a kind of spiritual despotism. Comte merely wishes to extend to politics, _considered as a positive science_, what is admitted in the other sciences by common consent.