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II

Comte continued, however, to collaborate with Saint-Simon in the various journalistic enterprises which the latter undertook during the next few years. His enthusiasm for his master was still undiminished. Saint-Simon is ``the most excellent man he knows,'' the ``most estimable and lovable of men,'' to whom he was sworn eternal friendship.13.13 At the next attempt at a journalistic enterprise, the Politique, Comte becomes a partner and shareholder with Saint-Simon.13.14 It is just one of the numerous liberal journals which in these years sprung up and died like mushrooms; but even its strongly liberal views, the advocacy by Comte of economy and the freedom of the press, did not secure it a life of more than five months. But three months after its death, in September 1819, Saint-Simon, again with Comte's support, started another and more characteristic organ, 13.15 which contains perhaps the most remarkable of Saint-Simon's writings, the Organisateur, whose very name was a program. It was certainly the first of his publications which attracted wide attention inside and outside France and which made him generally known as a social reformer.

This is probably due more than anything else to the prosecution which he drew on himself by the celebrated ``Parable'' with which the new publication opens. In it Saint-Simon first shows that if France were suddenly deprived of the fifty chief scientists in each field, of the fifty chief engineers, artists, poets, industrialists, bankers and artisans of various kinds, her very life and civilization would be destroyed. He then contrasts this with the case of a similar misfortune befalling a corresponding number of persons of the aristocracy, of dignitaries of state, of courtiers and of members of the high clergy, and points out how little difference this would really make to the prosperity of France.13.16 But although the best known, the ``Parable'' is by no means the most interesting part of the Organisateur. To do justice to its title, he presents for the first time in a series of letters a real plan for the reorganization of society, or at least a plan for a reorganization of the political system which would give all social activity the scientific direction which it needs.13.17While his starting point is now the English parliamentary system, which is the best system yet invented, his problem is how this system can be transformed into something resembling his Council of Newton of sixteen years before. The direction must be placed in the hands of the ``industrialists,''13.18 that is, all those who do productive work. They are to be organized in three separate bodies. The first, the chambre d'invention,13.19 is to consist of 200 engineers and 100 ``artists'' (poets, writers, painters, sculptors, architects, and musicians) and would have to draw up the plans for public undertakings. The chambre d'examination, consisting of 100 each of biologists, physicists, and mathematicians, would have to scrutinize and approve these plans. The chambre d'exécution, consisting entirely of the richest and most successful entrepreneurs, would watch over the execution of these works. Among the first tasks of the new parliament would be the reconstitution of the law of property, which ``must be founded on a basis most favorable to production.''13.20

The new system will come not only because its inherent advantages will be generally recognized, but, even more important, because it is the necessary outcome of the course which the advance of civilization has taken during the last seven hundred years.13.21 This proves that his plan is not a utopia13.22 but the result of the scientific treatment of history, of a true history of the whole of civilization, as Condorcet conceived it, which will enable us to continue on the predestined route with open eyes.13.23

As an ``example of how industry ought to be conceived''13.24 Saint-Simon then inserts two letters (the eighth and ninth) which, as we now know, were written by Comte, who later republished them under his own 13.25name. The most important parts of these are the brief passages elucidating Saint-Simon's suggestion that the rise of the new system is the necessary result of the law of progress: ``At no period has the progress of society been regulated by a system conceived by a man of genius and adopted by the masses. This would, from the nature of things, be impossible, for the law of human progress guides and dominates all; men are only its instruments.'' Therefore, ``all we can do is consciously to obey this law, which constitutes our true providence, ascertaining the course it marks out for us, instead of being blindly impelled by it. Here in truth lies the goal of the grand philosophic revolution for our own times.''13.26 For the rest, and although Comte's contribution still contains few ideas which cannot be found in Saint-Simon's earlier work, these are now presented with a terseness and force of which the latter was never capable. We find now even more stress placed on the need for the ``scientific and positive capacity'' to replace the old spiritual power,13.27the same exposition of the successive advances of science toward the positive stage till at last philosophy, morals and politics also reach it and thereby make the new scientifically directed social system possible,13.28 and the same impatience with the freedom of thought which is the denial of a spiritual power.13.29 New is the special emphasis on the role of the new ``class which occupies an intermediate position between the men of science, the artists, and the artisans, that of engineers,'' which symbolizes the new union between the spiritual and temporal capacities; a union which ``prepares the way for this joint direction of society.''13.30 Under their direction the whole of society will be organized to ``act upon nature'' as it is now organized in its separate parts.13.31 In this joint enterprise the people will no longer be subjects but associates or partners,13.32 and for the first time we find the suggestion that there will then be need no longer of ``government'' but merely of ``administration.''13.33

To Comte's contribution Saint-Simon merely added at the end of the second letter a characteristic appeal to the scientists and in particular to the artists, who, as the true ``engineers of the soul'' as Lenin later described them, are to use all the forces of imagination ``to exercise on the common mass sufficient action to determine them to follow irrevocably in the direction indicated and to assist their natural leaders in that great cooperation''--a first indication of the later Saint-Simonian theories about the social function of art.13.34

In the further description of the working of his new organization, Saint-Simon rises to an eloquence unknown to him before. ``In the new political order the social organization will have for its sole and permanent purpose the best possible use for the satisfaction of human needs of all the knowledge acquired in the sciences, the fine arts, and industry''13.35 and the increase of that knowledge. He does not stop to describe in detail ``the astonishing degree of prosperity to which society can aspire with such an organization.''13.36 While, so far, men have applied to nature only their isolated forces and even mutually counteracted their efforts in consequence of the division of mankind into unequal parts of which the smaller has always used all its power to dominate the other, men will cease to command each other and will organize to apply to nature their combined efforts. All that is required is that in the place of the vague ends which our social system now serves a positive social purpose should be decided upon:

In a society which is organized for the positive purpose of increasing its prosperity by means of science, art, and craftsmanship, the most important political act, that of determining the direction in which the community is to move, is no longer performed by men invested with social functions but by the body politic itself; ...the aim and purpose of such an organization are so clear and determined that there is no longer any room for arbitrariness of men or even of laws, because both can exist only in the vague, which is, so to speak, their natural, element. The actions of government that consist in commands will be reduced to nil or practically nil. All the questions that will have to be solved in such a political system, namely: By what enterprises can the community increase its present prosperity, making use of a given knowledge in science, in art, and in industry? By what measures can such knowledge be dispersed and brought to the furthest possible perfection? And finally by what means can these enterprises be carried out at a minimum cost and in minimum time?--all these questions, I contend, and all those to which they can give rise, are eminently positive and soluble. The decisions must be the result of scientific demonstrations totally independent of human will, and they will be subject to discussion by all those sufficiently educated to understand them .... Just as every question of social importance will necessarily be solved as well as the existing state of knowledge permits, so will all social functions necessarily be entrusted to those men who are most capable of exercising them in conformity with the general aims of the community. Under such an order we shall then see the disappearance of the three main disadvantages of the present political system, that is, arbitrariness, incapacity and intrigue.13.37

How perfectly this describes the beautiful illusions that ever since Saint-Simon's times have seduced scientifically trained minds! And yet how obvious it is to us now, even in this first formulation, that it is a delusion; that the idea is based on an extension of the scientific and engineering technique far beyond the field to which they are appropriate. Saint-Simon is fully conscious of the significance of his ambitions; he knows that his way of treating the problem of social organization ``exactly in the same manner as one treats other scientific questions'' is new.13.38 And how well has he succeeded in his intention d'imprimer au XIX$^e$ siècle le caractère organisateur!13.39

Yet at first he again fails with his appeals. It is the Bourbon king that he hopes will place himself at the head of the new movement and thereby not only meet all the dangers which threaten his house at the time, but also place France in the front of the march of civilization. Beside the glory which the Bourbons can acquire by social reforms even the fame of Bonaparte will pale.13.40But the only response is the prosecution of Saint-Simon as a moral accomplice in the assassination of the Duc de Berry,13.41 since in his ``Parable'' he had incited the people to do away with the nobility. Although in the end he was acquitted, the proceedings serving only to stimulate interest in the editor of the Organisateur, the journal did not survive this crisis. Saint-Simon's funds were once again exhausted, and after a new appeal to all those who felt in themselves the vocation to develop the philosophy of the nineteenth century and to subscribe as fondateurs de la politique positive, also failed, this enterprise too came to an end.


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