V.

Without much trouble, it is easy to see whence originate the essential features of this philosophy of history. In so far as it represents the development of humanity as subject to a law of evolution, which causes it to go through a succession of phases whose order is rationally determined, in a word as _progress_, the leading-idea is due to Comte’s “spiritual father,” to Condorcet.

For the interpretation of more recent events, and for the judgment passed upon the Middle Ages, Comte draws his inspiration from Joseph de Maistre, from the traditionalist school, and from Saint-Simon. To the latter, among other ideas, Comte owes the distinction between the critical and the organic periods. But, on Comte’s own confession, Joseph de Maistre’s influence over his mind was especially decisive. Like de Maistre, he thinks that the entirely negative philosophy of the XVIII. century knew very well how to destroy, but showed itself powerless to construct. Like de Maistre again, he is persuaded of the fact that social order requires a spiritual power beside the temporal power, and that the régime of the Middle Ages was a “masterpiece of political wisdom” precisely because at that period the Catholic Church had brought about the independence of the spiritual power. Finally, like de Maistre, he makes the salvation of humanity in the future depend upon their return to a unity of beliefs.

Comte then equally proceeds from the learned ideologist with whom the philosophical effort of the XVIII. century ends, and from the ardent traditionalist for whom this very century is the abhorred period of error and of moral perversion. He undertakes, not indeed to reconcile them (who can reconcile things which exclude each other?), but to found a more comprehensive doctrine in which he will combine what he has received from the one and the other. As such his own task appears to him, and he does not believe it to be above his power; he feels himself in a position to avoid the mistakes which his predecessors were bound to make. Condorcet had a clear idea of social science; but that did not prevent him from misunderstanding the real onward movement of the human mind, and only to estimate his own century justly at the expense of preceding periods. De Maistre in his turn, no less prejudiced, though in another way, does not understand history any better. To restore society, to re-establish it in the state in which it was in the XIII. century, he goes to absurd lengths. He claims to take no notice of the advance of civilisation, and of the development of the sciences. Condorcet, who brought to light the idea of progress, understood nothing in the Middle Ages. De Maistre, who so clearly saw the excellence of the Middle Ages, denies the glaring fact of progress.

Both are excusable, because they were still too close to the French Revolution to grasp its full meaning. In the heart of the fray they were still partially blinded. Comte, who sees things from a greater distance, also sees them from a higher standpoint. He especially has at his disposal an instrument which neither Condorcet nor de Maistre possessed: he has completed the positive method, and he applies it to the science of historical phenomena. In a word, he has founded Sociology.

If he did not push social science as far forward as he believed, at any rate he was right in thinking that his originality lay in this attempt. The problem was clearly set: to blend into a new and positive science the social ideas proceeding from the speculation of the XVIII. century with the historical truths brought to light by the adversaries of this philosophy. The solution given by Comte is the very soul of his system. By a twofold and vigorous effort, he created “social physics.” On the one hand, he carries to the past the idea of progress which Condorcet could only apply to the future, and this allowed him to institute a positive philosophy of history. At the same time, he projects into the future that spiritual order which de Maistre had only seen in the past, and this furnishes him with the frame for his “social reorganisation”.

This philosophy of history, which no longer contains anything metaphysical, is social dynamics; this “reorganisation” of society, by means of a spiritual power, will be the positive polity.

FOOTNOTES:

[286] Cours, VI, 457.

[287] Cours, V, 4-5.

[288] Cours, V, 360-1: VI, 50.

[289] Cours, V, 318.

[290] Cours, V, 124-7.

[291] Cours, VI, 148.

[292] Cours, VI, 156-7.

[293] Cours, VI, 248.

[294] Cours, VI, 194.

[295] Cours, V, 325.

[296] Pol. pos., II, 121-131.

[297] Cours, V, 306 sq.

[298] Cours, V, 362.

[299] Cours, V, 335.

[300] Pol. pos., II.

[301] Cours, V, 541-5.

[302] Correspondance de Comte et de John Stuart Mill, p. 458 (14, juillet 1845.)

[303] Pol. pos., IV, Appendice, p. 193.

[304] Cours, V, 413.

[305] Cours, VI, 23.

[306] Cours, V, 414.

[307] Cours, V, 314-16.

[308] Cours, V, 431-33; 467-8; 511-13.

[309] Cours, V, 531.

[310] Cours, V, 435.

[311] Cours, VI, 236.

[312] Cours, V, 589.

[313] Pol. pos., IV, Appendice, p. 180-1.

[314] Cours, VI, 36.

[315] Cours, IV, 60.

[316] Cours, IV, 159.

[317] Cours, IV, 75 sq.

[318] Cours, IV, 40.

[319] Cours, IV, 100.

[320] Cours, IV, 46.

[321] Cours, IV, 46.

## BOOK IV

## CHAPTER I

THE PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS

In Comte’s system Ethics occupies an intermediate place between theoretical philosophy and politics. Ethics rests upon the philosophy as Politics rests on the principles of Ethics.

Ethics is not an abstract speculative science; it does not therefore belong to the hierarchy of the fundamental sciences. It is true that, at the end of his life, Comte added a seventh to the six sciences of the early list,[322] which precisely was ethics, that is to say the science of the laws which govern the emotions, passions, desires, etc., of man considered as an individual. But here it is more a question of ethical psychology than of ethics understood in the sense usual with philosophers. The latter, in Comte’s eyes, never constituted the object of a special science. As a matter of fact, either the laws of moral phenomena are studied, and this research, founded upon the positive knowledge of individual and collective human nature, forms a part of sociology. Or, starting from the knowledge of these laws, we ask ourselves what would be the best use for the power possessed by man of modifying phenomena; in this case it is an art whose rules must be determined. But for these rules to be rationally established, social science itself must be rationally founded. Thus, from the practical as from the speculative point of view, positive ethics depends upon sociology.