II.

Positive philosophy does not confine itself to refuting the orthodox economists and the socialists by the help of their own arguments. In its turn it takes up all the questions raised by them, and, for their solution, takes its stand upon the results obtained by sociology.

In the first place it states the problem of “social reorganisation” in its most general form. Socialists, in the same way as their adversaries, are only concerned with riches as if they were the only ill-divided and ill-administered social forces. But there are others. The reform of economical conditions depends, in conclusion, upon that of morals. Before all things then we must “reorganise” morals. We must determine the rights and mutual duties of citizens, and inspire everyone with the feeling of his duty and with respect for the rights of others.

The two ideas of right and of duty are not dealt with by Comte in the same manner. He accepts the idea of duty without subjecting it to a special criticism. Duty is the rule of action prescribed to each one both by feeling and by reason. It is our duty to do what we recognise as most suitable to our individual and social nature. On the contrary, the idea of right “disappears” in the positive state. The word “right” must be removed from political language, in the same way as the word “cause” is from philosophical language. They are two metaphysical notions. Everyone has duties, and towards all. No one has any right properly so-called. “The idea of right is as false as it is immoral, because it presupposes an absolute individuality.”[345]

These formulæ called forth strong protests, particularly from M. Renouvier and his disciples. Indeed, in the constitution of civil society, they appear to neglect justice entirely, to establish the relations between men merely upon charity and feeling. However, if we look into it closely, Comte’s thought as is often the case, has been forced and warped, by its expression. But the comparison between the ideas of right and of cause suggested by him, satisfactorily throws a light upon his meaning.

Positive science has given up the search after causes, in order to confine itself to establishing the invariable relations between phenomena. But these relations correspond to what was formerly called causal action. They represent what was real in this supposed action. The only difference--but it is important--consists in the fact that the human mind has forsaken the absolute point of view for the relative one, and is henceforth content to establish the connection between phenomena, without imagining “connecting entities” according to Malebranche’s strong expression.

The idea of right has gone through an analogous transformation. In the same way as the idea of cause, it was theological for a long time, and then metaphysical. In antiquity it was closely allied to religion. In modern times the rights of peoples, and even the rights of individuals, are conceived according to the ancient standard of the rights of princes and masters. But, having become established by triumphing over the rights of princes, the rights of peoples and individuals ultimately rest, as they did, upon a supernatural and mystical basis. The rights which every citizen claims are the change in small coin of the absolute right formerly possessed by the sovereign who represented the whole nation. Having become metaphysical in the XVIII. century, the idea of absolute, intangible, indefeasible right, which attaches to the human person, has been most useful for the decomposition of the old _régime_. But, once this work has been accomplished, it cannot be made use of in the work of reorganisation any more than the other metaphysical principles. Positive philosophy admits nothing absolute. Everything in society is at once subject to conditions, and places conditions upon all things. Nothing is unconditional; and sociology teaches that we must go not from the individual to society, but from society to the individual.

In consequence, here again we must give up endeavouring to transform a critical principle into an organic one. Undoubtedly rights will remain, as the constant connections between phenomena subsist. But we shall cease to base these rights upon a metaphysical conception of human nature, in the same way as we have ceased to refer the connections between phenomena to metaphysical entities called causes. Instead of making individual duties consist in the respect of universal rights, we shall conceive inversely the rights of each one as the result of the duties of others towards him. In a word, duty is established before right. This principle is of the highest importance in Comte’s eyes. In it he sees an expression and a proof of the predominance of the positive over the metaphysical spirit, and of the subordination of politics to ethics. He likes to say that “the consideration of duty is bound up with the spirit of the whole.” On the contrary, the consideration of right, if it be conceived as absolute, leads to a denial of all government and of all social organisation.

The new philosophy will tend more and more to replace “the vague and stormy discussion of rights, by the calm and strict determination of respective duties.” Henceforth, the problem raised by the communists assumes a new aspect. That there should be powerful industrial masters is only an evil if they use their power to oppress the men who depend upon them. It is a good thing, on the contrary, if these masters know and fulfil their duties. It is of little consequence to popular interests in whose hands capital is accumulated, so long as the use made of it is beneficial to the social masses.[346] Now this essential condition “depends far more upon moral than upon political measures.” The latter can undoubtedly prevent the accumulation of riches in a small number of hands, at the risk of paralysing industrial activity. But these “tyrannical” proceedings would be far less efficacious than the universal reproof inflicted by positive ethics upon a selfish use of the riches possessed. The reproof would be all the more irresistible, because of the fact that the very people who would have to submit to it could not challenge its principle, inculcated in all by the common moral education.” It is thus that in the Middle Ages, excommunication was not less feared by the princes who incurred it than it was by the peoples who witnessed it.

Once common education was established, under the direction of the spiritual power, the tyranny of the capitalist class would be no more to be feared. Rich men would consider themselves as the moral guardians of public capital. It is not here a question of charity. Those who possess will have the “duty” of securing, first, education and then work for all.

These ideas seem perhaps paradoxical and chimerical. But, says Comte, this is because modern society has not yet got its system of morality. Industrial relations which have become immensely developed in it are abandoned to a dangerous empiricism, instead of being systematised according to _moral_ laws. War, more or less openly declared, alone regulates the relations between capital and labour. In a normal state of humanity these relations, on the contrary, are “organised.” Strength does not generate oppression. Every citizen is a “public functionary,” whose well-defined functions determine at once his obligations and his claims (that is to say his rights). Property is a function like any other, and not a privilege. It serves for the formation and administration of capital by means of which each generation prepares the work of the next. Those who hold it must not turn it from its public use to their own individual advantage.[347]

In the same way as the capitalists, the workers are public functionaries, and they perform a no less important service. Independently of their salary, they are deserving social gratitude. Our customs already admit of this feeling in the case of the liberal professions in which the salary does not dispense with gratitude. This feeling will have to be extended to all work which contributes to the common weal. The service of humanity, says Comte, is a gratuitous one. The salary, whatever it may be, only pays for the material part in every office. It serves to repair the consumption demanded by the organ and the function. As to the essence of service itself it allows of no other reward than the very satisfaction of performing it, and the gratitude which it arouses.[348]

Consequently in a “truly organised” society (note this expression which M. de Bonald often uses), the vulgar distinction between public and private functionaries is destined to disappear. As, in an army, even the private soldier has his own dignity which comes from the close solidarity of the military organisation, and from this fact, that all share the same honour in it; so, when positive education has made evident to all the part played by each one in the social work, professions which are humblest to-day will become ennobled.[349] The industrial _régime_ of to-day, which shows us little else than the conflict of rival egoisms, is an anarchical _régime_, or, to put it better, an “absence of _régime_.”

Modern society has not yet got its morals. It will form them gradually, in the same way as military society did. Military life, more than any other, is ruled by the predominating selfish inclinations. Nevertheless, as it could only be developed by the spirit of union, this condition alone sufficed for it to determine admirable devotion.[350] Why should it not be the same in industrial life which rests upon the peaceful and constructing instinct? Otherwise, if the present “anarchy” of morals were to last, modern society would remain below the level of the Middle Ages, which really was organised by its spiritual power. It would even be below the level of military societies. What would be the use of substituting monopoly to conquest, and a despotism based upon the right of the richest to the despotism resting upon the right of the strongest?[351]

Everything then depends upon the common moral education, which itself depends upon the establishment of a spiritual power. The superiority of the positive doctrine lies in the fact that it has restored this power. The innovating schools all wish to secure normal education and regular work for the proletariat. But they want both at once, or work before education. Positivism wishes to organise education _first_.[352]

Naturally, in positive education duties will be presented in their social aspect. Thus the elementary virtues of temperance, of chastity, etc., are recommended by positive morality;--but not from the point of view of their usefulness to the individual. Even if “an exceptionally constituted nature should shield the individual from the consequences of intemperance or debauchery,” soberness and continence would be no less strictly required of him as being indispensable for the fulfilment of his social duties.[353] In the same way, the object of domestic morality is not to form “a selfishness shared by several,” but to develop the sympathetic affections which, from the family will gradually extend to the social group, and then to humanity. The principle is to get man into the habit of subjecting himself to humanity, even in his smallest actions, and in all his thoughts. Once this point is reached, modern society will spontaneously become organised and the positive _régime_ will of itself be established.

FOOTNOTES:

[333] Cours, VI, 376.

[334] Pol. pos. I, 128-9.

[335] Cours, V, 357.

[336] Pol. pos., II, 410-12.

[337] Cours, VI, 268-9.

[338] Cours, V, 608; Pol. pos. III, 585.

[339] Cours, IV, 218-24.

[340] Cours, IV, 212-15.

[341] Pol. pos. I, 154.

[342] Pol. pos. I, 160-3.

[343] Cours, IV, 97-9.

[344] Pol. pos. I, 159.

[345] Cours, VI, 480; Pol. pos. I, 361-3; II, 87.

[346] Cours, VI, 543-6.

[347] Pol. pos. 156-64.

[348] Pol. pos. II, 409.

[349] Cours, VI, 511-15.

[350] Pol. pos. II, 16.

[351] Pol. pos. IV, Appendice, p. 211.

[352] Pol. pos. I, 169.

[353] Pol. pos. I, 97-8.

## CHAPTER III

THE IDEA OF HUMANITY

In this world there is nothing absolute, everything is relative; Comte wrote this to his friend Valat as early as 1818.[354] But as a matter of fact, there exists a supreme reality to which all others are subordinated, the idea of which is the principle of a rational conception of the world. Comte calls this reality _humanity_. Instead of being the ultimate end of all thought and all action “in itself,” it is the ultimate end “for us.” But this difference simply signifies that the new philosophy leaves the metaphysical for the positive point of view. With these limitations the idea of humanity “corresponds” to the old idea of the absolute. It takes its place and fulfils its religious part. It is truly, if one dares to say so, a “relative absolute.”

In Comte’s doctrine, the idea of humanity is presented under several successive aspects, or, to put it better, the development of his system has brought to light, in turns, the various attributes of this “Great Being.” In his first career, Comte prefers to consider humanity as an object of science. In his second career, it rather appears to him as an object of adoration and of love. Here we can follow the progress of the mystical and religious feeling which, especially from 1846, filled his thoughts and modified his language, his philosophical doctrine, nevertheless, remaining essentially the same.